System having modular accelerators

ABSTRACT

A storage system, blades, removable modules, and method of configuring a storage system are described. The storage system has blades with computing resources and storage resources. At least one of the blades has, or has added, one or more removable modules.

This application claims benefit of priority from U.S. application Ser.No. 15/653,285 titled DISAGGREGATED COMPUTE RESOURCES AND STORAGERESOURCES IN A STORAGE SYSTEM filed Jul. 18, 2017, which is acontinuation-in-part of U.S. application Ser. No. 15/213,447 titledINDEPENDENT SCALING OF COMPUTE RESOURCES AND STORAGE RESOURCES IN ASTORAGE SYSTEM filed Jul. 19, 2016.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The technical field to which the invention relates is data storagesystems.

BACKGROUND

Data storage needs continue to grow, as do capacities of storagesystems. A scalable storage system architecture supports addition ofmemory, so that the storage system can grow in capacity to meet userneeds. Yet, capacity is not the only factor to be considered inscalability. Communication delays among components in a storage systemcan worsen as more components are added in order to increase capacity. Afixed communication bandwidth can result in communication bottlenecks asadded components increase the total number of communications for a giventime span in a storage system. Communication delays are especiallynoticeable and can abruptly worsen when expanding from a single chassisto a multi-chassis storage system. Also, computing power can getstrained as more memory is added to a storage system, contributing tolengthening data access times with storage system expansion. It is inthis context that present embodiments for storage system scalabilityarise.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

FIG. 1A illustrates a first example system for data storage inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 1B illustrates a second example system for data storage inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 1C illustrates a third example system for data storage inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 1D illustrates a fourth example system for data storage inaccordance with some implementations.

FIG. 2A is a perspective view of a storage cluster with multiple storagenodes and internal storage coupled to each storage node to providenetwork attached storage, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram showing an interconnect switch couplingmultiple storage nodes in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2C is a multiple level block diagram, showing contents of a storagenode and contents of one of the non-volatile solid state storage unitsin accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2D shows a storage server environment, which uses embodiments ofthe storage nodes and storage units of some previous figures inaccordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2E is a blade hardware block diagram, showing a control plane,compute and storage planes, and authorities interacting with underlyingphysical resources, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2F depicts elasticity software layers in blades of a storagecluster, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 2G depicts authorities and storage resources in blades of a storagecluster, in accordance with some embodiments.

FIG. 3A sets forth a diagram of a storage system that is coupled fordata communications with a cloud services provider in accordance withsome embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 3B sets forth a diagram of a storage system in accordance with someembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 4 sets forth a diagram of a chassis for use in a storage systemthat supports independent scaling of compute resources and storageresources according to embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 5 sets forth a diagram of a hybrid blade useful in storage systemsthat support independent scaling of compute resources and storageresources according to embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 6 sets forth a diagram of an additional hybrid blade useful instorage systems that support independent scaling of compute resourcesand storage resources according to embodiments of the presentdisclosure.

FIG. 7 sets forth a diagram of a storage blade useful in storage systemsthat support independent scaling of compute resources and storageresources according to embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 8 sets forth a diagram of a compute blade useful in storage systemsthat support independent scaling of compute resources and storageresources according to embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 9 sets forth a diagram of a storage system that supportsindependent scaling of compute resources and storage resources accordingto embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 10 sets forth a diagram of a storage system that supportsindependent scaling of compute resources and storage resources accordingto embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 11 sets forth a diagram of a set of blades useful in a storagesystem that supports independent scaling of compute resources andstorage resources according to embodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 12 sets forth a block diagram of automated computing machinerycomprising an example computer useful in supporting independent scalingof compute resources and storage resources according to embodiments ofthe present disclosure.

FIG. 13A sets forth a diagram of a single chassis storage system thathas a switch for direct network-connected communication among computingresources and storage resources of the storage system according toembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 13B sets forth a diagram of a multi-chassis storage system that hasa switch for direct network-connected communication among computeresources and storage resources of the storage system according toembodiments of the present disclosure.

FIG. 14A sets forth a diagram of a storage resource for embodiments of astorage system, with flash memory and a flash controller connected to aswitch such as shown in FIGS. 10A and 10B.

FIG. 14B sets forth a diagram of a storage resource for embodiments of astorage system, with flash memory, a NIC (network interface card ornetwork interface controller) and a packet processing control processor,with the NIC connected to a switch such as shown in FIGS. 10A and 10B.

FIG. 14C sets forth a diagram of a storage resource for embodiments of astorage system, with network-connectable flash memory connected to aswitch such as shown in FIGS. 10A and 10B.

FIG. 15 sets forth a diagram depicting compute resources voting toassign a host controller for a storage resource to one of the computeresources.

FIG. 16 is a flow diagram of a method of communicating in a storagesystem that has disaggregated compute resources and storage memory,which can be practiced by embodiments of storage systems describedherein and variations thereof.

FIG. 17 illustrates a 10 slot chassis with removable compute blades with4 slots for flash modules in a 5 rack unit.

FIG. 18 illustrates a 4 controller system in an 8 rack unit with twofabric modules.

FIG. 19 illustrates 5 controllers and 22 custom storage modules with 2flash modules in a 5 rack unit.

FIG. 20 illustrates a 3 rack unit expansion shelf.

FIG. 21 illustrates servers with up to 8 drive slots each andcorresponding fabric modules.

FIG. 22 illustrates rack unit servers that are stateless plus anexternal shelf.

FIG. 23 illustrates rack unit servers that that include non-volatilerandom access memory plus an external shelf.

FIG. 24A illustrates a blade with one type of slot for a removablemodule, accessible by removing the blade from a chassis.

FIG. 24B illustrates a blade with another type of slot for a removablemodule, accessible without removing the blade from the chassis.

FIG. 24C illustrates a blade with multiple slots for a removable module.

FIG. 25 illustrates a flow diagram of a method that is practiced on orby embodiments of storage systems.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

Example methods, apparatus, and products for storage systems withremovable modules in accordance with embodiments of the presentdisclosure are described with reference to the accompanying drawings,beginning with FIG. 1A. FIG. 1A illustrates an example system for datastorage, in accordance with some implementations. System 100 (alsoreferred to as “storage system” herein) includes numerous elements forpurposes of illustration rather than limitation. It may be noted thatsystem 100 may include the same, more, or fewer elements configured inthe same or different manner in other implementations.

System 100 includes a number of computing devices 164A-B. Computingdevices (also referred to as “client devices” herein) may be embodied,for example, a server in a data center, a workstation, a personalcomputer, a notebook, or the like. Computing devices 164A-B may becoupled for data communications to one or more storage arrays 102A-Bthrough a storage area network (‘SAN’) 158 or a local area network(‘LAN’) 160.

The SAN 158 may be implemented with a variety of data communicationsfabrics, devices, and protocols. For example, the fabrics for SAN 158may include Fibre Channel, Ethernet, Infiniband, Serial Attached SmallComputer System Interface (‘SAS’), or the like. Data communicationsprotocols for use with SAN 158 may include Advanced TechnologyAttachment (‘ATA’), Fibre Channel Protocol, Small Computer SystemInterface (‘SCSI’), Internet Small Computer System Interface (‘iSCSI’),HyperSCSI, Non-Volatile Memory Express (‘NVMe’) over Fabrics, or thelike. It may be noted that SAN 158 is provided for illustration, ratherthan limitation. Other data communication couplings may be implementedbetween computing devices 164A-B and storage arrays 102A-B.

The LAN 160 may also be implemented with a variety of fabrics, devices,and protocols. For example, the fabrics for LAN 160 may include Ethernet(802.3), wireless (802.11), or the like. Data communication protocolsfor use in LAN 160 may include Transmission Control Protocol (‘TCP’),User Datagram Protocol (‘UDP’), Internet Protocol (‘IP’), HyperTextTransfer Protocol (‘HTTP’), Wireless Access Protocol (‘WAP’), HandheldDevice Transport Protocol (‘HDTP’), Session Initiation Protocol (‘SIP’),Real Time Protocol (‘RTP’), or the like.

Storage arrays 102A-B may provide persistent data storage for thecomputing devices 164A-B. Storage array 102A may be contained in achassis (not shown), and storage array 102B may be contained in anotherchassis (not shown), in implementations. Storage array 102A and 102B mayinclude one or more storage array controllers 110A-D (also referred toas “controller” herein). A storage array controller 110A-D may beembodied as a module of automated computing machinery comprisingcomputer hardware, computer software, or a combination of computerhardware and software. In some implementations, the storage arraycontrollers 110A-D may be configured to carry out various storage tasks.Storage tasks may include writing data received from the computingdevices 164A-B to storage array 102A-B, erasing data from storage array102A-B, retrieving data from storage array 102A-B and providing data tocomputing devices 164A-B, monitoring and reporting of disk utilizationand performance, performing redundancy operations, such as RedundantArray of Independent Drives (‘RAID’) or RAID-like data redundancyoperations, compressing data, encrypting data, and so forth.

Storage array controller 110A-D may be implemented in a variety of ways,including as a Field Programmable Gate Array (‘FPGA’), a ProgrammableLogic Chip (‘PLC’), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (‘ASIC’),System-on-Chip (‘SOC’), or any computing device that includes discretecomponents such as a processing device, central processing unit,computer memory, or various adapters. Storage array controller 110A-Dmay include, for example, a data communications adapter configured tosupport communications via the SAN 158 or LAN 160. In someimplementations, storage array controller 110A-D may be independentlycoupled to the LAN 160. In implementations, storage array controller110A-D may include an I/O controller or the like that couples thestorage array controller 110A-D for data communications, through amidplane (not shown), to a persistent storage resource 170A-B (alsoreferred to as a “storage resource” herein). The persistent storageresource 170A-B main include any number of storage drives 171A-F (alsoreferred to as “storage devices” herein) and any number of non-volatileRandom Access Memory (‘NVRAM’) devices (not shown).

In some implementations, the NVRAM devices of a persistent storageresource 170A-B may be configured to receive, from the storage arraycontroller 110A-D, data to be stored in the storage drives 171A-F. Insome examples, the data may originate from computing devices 164A-B. Insome examples, writing data to the NVRAM device may be carried out morequickly than directly writing data to the storage drive 171A-F. Inimplementations, the storage array controller 110A-D may be configuredto utilize the NVRAM devices as a quickly accessible buffer for datadestined to be written to the storage drives 171A-F. Latency for writerequests using NVRAM devices as a buffer may be improved relative to asystem in which a storage array controller 110A-D writes data directlyto the storage drives 171A-F. In some implementations, the NVRAM devicesmay be implemented with computer memory in the form of high bandwidth,low latency RAM. The NVRAM device is referred to as “non-volatile”because the NVRAM device may receive or include a unique power sourcethat maintains the state of the RAM after main power loss to the NVRAMdevice. Such a power source may be a battery, one or more capacitors, orthe like. In response to a power loss, the NVRAM device may beconfigured to write the contents of the RAM to a persistent storage,such as the storage drives 171A-F.

In implementations, storage drive 171A-F may refer to any deviceconfigured to record data persistently, where “persistently” or“persistent” refers as to a device's ability to maintain recorded dataafter loss of power. In some implementations, storage drive 171A-F maycorrespond to non-disk storage media. For example, the storage drive171A-F may be one or more solid-state drives (‘SSDs’), flash memorybased storage, any type of solid-state non-volatile memory, or any othertype of non-mechanical storage device. In other implementations, storagedrive 171A-F may include mechanical or spinning hard disk, such ashard-disk drives (‘HDD’).

In some implementations, the storage array controllers 110A-D may beconfigured for offloading device management responsibilities fromstorage drive 171A-F in storage array 102A-B. For example, storage arraycontrollers 110A-D may manage control information that may describe thestate of one or more memory blocks in the storage drives 171A-F. Thecontrol information may indicate, for example, that a particular memoryblock has failed and should no longer be written to, that a particularmemory block contains boot code for a storage array controller 110A-D,the number of program-erase (‘P/E’) cycles that have been performed on aparticular memory block, the age of data stored in a particular memoryblock, the type of data that is stored in a particular memory block, andso forth. In some implementations, the control information may be storedwith an associated memory block as metadata. In other implementations,the control information for the storage drives 171A-F may be stored inone or more particular memory blocks of the storage drives 171A-F thatare selected by the storage array controller 110A-D. The selected memoryblocks may be tagged with an identifier indicating that the selectedmemory block contains control information. The identifier may beutilized by the storage array controllers 110A-D in conjunction withstorage drives 171A-F to quickly identify the memory blocks that containcontrol information. For example, the storage controllers 110A-D mayissue a command to locate memory blocks that contain controlinformation. It may be noted that control information may be so largethat parts of the control information may be stored in multiplelocations, that the control information may be stored in multiplelocations for purposes of redundancy, for example, or that the controlinformation may otherwise be distributed across multiple memory blocksin the storage drive 171A-F.

In implementations, storage array controllers 110A-D may offload devicemanagement responsibilities from storage drives 171A-F of storage array102A-B by retrieving, from the storage drives 171A-F, controlinformation describing the state of one or more memory blocks in thestorage drives 171A-F. Retrieving the control information from thestorage drives 171A-F may be carried out, for example, by the storagearray controller 110A-D querying the storage drives 171A-F for thelocation of control information for a particular storage drive 171A-F.The storage drives 171A-F may be configured to execute instructions thatenable the storage drive 171A-F to identify the location of the controlinformation. The instructions may be executed by a controller (notshown) associated with or otherwise located on the storage drive 171A-Fand may cause the storage drive 171A-F to scan a portion of each memoryblock to identify the memory blocks that store control information forthe storage drives 171A-F. The storage drives 171A-F may respond bysending a response message to the storage array controller 110A-D thatincludes the location of control information for the storage drive171A-F. Responsive to receiving the response message, storage arraycontrollers 110A-D may issue a request to read data stored at theaddress associated with the location of control information for thestorage drives 171A-F.

In other implementations, the storage array controllers 110A-D mayfurther offload device management responsibilities from storage drives171A-F by performing, in response to receiving the control information,a storage drive management operation. A storage drive managementoperation may include, for example, an operation that is typicallyperformed by the storage drive 171A-F (e.g., the controller (not shown)associated with a particular storage drive 171A-F). A storage drivemanagement operation may include, for example, ensuring that data is notwritten to failed memory blocks within the storage drive 171A-F,ensuring that data is written to memory blocks within the storage drive171A-F in such a way that adequate wear leveling is achieved, and soforth.

In implementations, storage array 102A-B may implement two or morestorage array controllers 110A-D. For example, storage array 102A mayinclude storage array controllers 110A and storage array controllers110B. At a given instance, a single storage array controller 110A-D(e.g., storage array controller 110A) of a storage system 100 may bedesignated with primary status (also referred to as “primary controller”herein), and other storage array controllers 110A-D (e.g., storage arraycontroller 110A) may be designated with secondary status (also referredto as “secondary controller” herein). The primary controller may haveparticular rights, such as permission to alter data in persistentstorage resource 170A-B (e.g., writing data to persistent storageresource 170A-B). At least some of the rights of the primary controllermay supersede the rights of the secondary controller. For instance, thesecondary controller may not have permission to alter data in persistentstorage resource 170A-B when the primary controller has the right. Thestatus of storage array controllers 110A-D may change. For example,storage array controller 110A may be designated with secondary status,and storage array controller 110B may be designated with primary status.

In some implementations, a primary controller, such as storage arraycontroller 110A, may serve as the primary controller for one or morestorage arrays 102A-B, and a second controller, such as storage arraycontroller 110B, may serve as the secondary controller for the one ormore storage arrays 102A-B. For example, storage array controller 110Amay be the primary controller for storage array 102A and storage array102B, and storage array controller 110B may be the secondary controllerfor storage array 102A and 102B. In some implementations, storage arraycontrollers 110C and 110D (also referred to as “storage processingmodules”) may neither have primary or secondary status. Storage arraycontrollers 110C and 110D, implemented as storage processing modules,may act as a communication interface between the primary and secondarycontrollers (e.g., storage array controllers 110A and 110B,respectively) and storage array 102B. For example, storage arraycontroller 110A of storage array 102A may send a write request, via SAN158, to storage array 102B. The write request may be received by bothstorage array controllers 110C and 110D of storage array 102B. Storagearray controllers 110C and 110D facilitate the communication, e.g., sendthe write request to the appropriate storage drive 171A-F. It may benoted that in some implementations storage processing modules may beused to increase the number of storage drives controlled by the primaryand secondary controllers.

In implementations, storage array controllers 110A-D are communicativelycoupled, via a midplane (not shown), to one or more storage drives171A-F and to one or more NVRAM devices (not shown) that are included aspart of a storage array 102A-B. The storage array controllers 110A-D maybe coupled to the midplane via one or more data communication links andthe midplane may be coupled to the storage drives 171A-F and the NVRAMdevices via one or more data communications links. The datacommunications links described herein are collectively illustrated bydata communications links 108A-D and may include a Peripheral ComponentInterconnect Express (‘PCIe’) bus, for example.

FIG. 1B illustrates an example system for data storage, in accordancewith some implementations. Storage array controller 101 illustrated inFIG. 1B may similar to the storage array controllers 110A-D describedwith respect to FIG. 1A. In one example, storage array controller 101may be similar to storage array controller 110A or storage arraycontroller 110B. Storage array controller 101 includes numerous elementsfor purposes of illustration rather than limitation. It may be notedthat storage array controller 101 may include the same, more, or fewerelements configured in the same or different manner in otherimplementations. It may be noted that elements of FIG. 1A may beincluded below to help illustrate features of storage array controller101.

Storage array controller 101 may include one or more processing devices104 and random access memory (‘RAM’) 111. Processing device 104 (orcontroller 101) represents one or more general-purpose processingdevices such as a microprocessor, central processing unit, or the like.More particularly, the processing device 104 (or controller 101) may bea complex instruction set computing (‘CISC’) microprocessor, reducedinstruction set computing (RISC′) microprocessor, very long instructionword (‘VLIW’) microprocessor, or a processor implementing otherinstruction sets or processors implementing a combination of instructionsets. The processing device 104 (or controller 101) may also be one ormore special-purpose processing devices such as an ASIC, an FPGA, adigital signal processor (‘DSP’), network processor, or the like.

The processing device 104 may be connected to the RAM 111 via a datacommunications link 106, which may be embodied as a high speed memorybus such as a Double-Data Rate 4 (‘DDR4’) bus. Stored in RAM 111 is anoperating system 112. In some implementations, instructions 113 arestored in RAM 111. Instructions 113 may include computer programinstructions for performing operations in in a direct-mapped flashstorage system. In one embodiment, a direct-mapped flash storage systemis one that that addresses data blocks within flash drives directly andwithout an address translation performed by the storage controllers ofthe flash drives.

In implementations, storage array controller 101 includes one or morehost bus adapters 103A-C that are coupled to the processing device 104via a data communications link 105A-C. In implementations, host busadapters 103A-C may be computer hardware that connects a host system(e.g., the storage array controller) to other network and storagearrays. In some examples, host bus adapters 103A-C may be a FibreChannel adapter that enables the storage array controller 101 to connectto a SAN, an Ethernet adapter that enables the storage array controller101 to connect to a LAN, or the like. Host bus adapters 103A-C may becoupled to the processing device 104 via a data communications link105A-C such as, for example, a PCIe bus.

In implementations, storage array controller 101 may include a host busadapter 114 that is coupled to an expander 115. The expander 115 may beused to attach a host system to a larger number of storage drives. Theexpander 115 may, for example, be a SAS expander utilized to enable thehost bus adapter 114 to attach to storage drives in an implementationwhere the host bus adapter 114 is embodied as a SAS controller.

In implementations, storage array controller 101 may include a switch116 coupled to the processing device 104 via a data communications link109. The switch 116 may be a computer hardware device that can createmultiple endpoints out of a single endpoint, thereby enabling multipledevices to share a single endpoint. The switch 116 may, for example, bea PCIe switch that is coupled to a PCIe bus (e.g., data communicationslink 109) and presents multiple PCIe connection points to the midplane.

In implementations, storage array controller 101 includes a datacommunications link 107 for coupling the storage array controller 101 toother storage array controllers. In some examples, data communicationslink 107 may be a QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) interconnect.

A traditional storage system that uses traditional flash drives mayimplement a process across the flash drives that are part of thetraditional storage system. For example, a higher level process of thestorage system may initiate and control a process across the flashdrives. However, a flash drive of the traditional storage system mayinclude its own storage controller that also performs the process. Thus,for the traditional storage system, a higher level process (e.g.,initiated by the storage system) and a lower level process (e.g.,initiated by a storage controller of the storage system) may both beperformed.

To resolve various deficiencies of a traditional storage system,operations may be performed by higher level processes and not by thelower level processes. For example, the flash storage system may includeflash drives that do not include storage controllers that provide theprocess. Thus, the operating system of the flash storage system itselfmay initiate and control the process. This may be accomplished by adirect-mapped flash storage system that addresses data blocks within theflash drives directly and without an address translation performed bythe storage controllers of the flash drives.

In implementations, storage drive 171A-F may be one or more zonedstorage devices. In some implementations, the one or more zoned storagedevices may be a shingled HDD. In implementations, the one or morestorage devices may be a flash-based SSD. In a zoned storage device, azoned namespace on the zoned storage device can be addressed by groupsof blocks that are grouped and aligned by a natural size, forming anumber of addressable zones. In implementations utilizing an SSD, thenatural size may be based on the erase block size of the SSD.

The mapping from a zone to an erase block (or to a shingled track in anHDD) may be arbitrary, dynamic, and hidden from view. The process ofopening a zone may be an operation that allows a new zone to bedynamically mapped to underlying storage of the zoned storage device,and then allows data to be written through appending writes into thezone until the zone reaches capacity. The zone can be finished at anypoint, after which further data may not be written into the zone. Whenthe data stored at the zone is no longer needed, the zone can be resetwhich effectively deletes the zone's content from the zoned storagedevice, making the physical storage held by that zone available for thesubsequent storage of data. Once a zone has been written and finished,the zoned storage device ensures that the data stored at the zone is notlost until the zone is reset. In the time between writing the data tothe zone and the resetting of the zone, the zone may be moved aroundbetween shingle tracks or erase blocks as part of maintenance operationswithin the zoned storage device, such as by copying data to keep thedata refreshed or to handle memory cell aging in an SSD.

In implementations utilizing an HDD, the resetting of the zone may allowthe shingle tracks to be allocated to a new, opened zone that may beopened at some point in the future. In implementations utilizing an SSD,the resetting of the zone may cause the associated physical eraseblock(s) of the zone to be erased and subsequently reused for thestorage of data. In some implementations, the zoned storage device mayhave a limit on the number of open zones at a point in time to reducethe amount of overhead dedicated to keeping zones open.

The operating system of the flash storage system may identify andmaintain a list of allocation units across multiple flash drives of theflash storage system. The allocation units may be entire erase blocks ormultiple erase blocks. The operating system may maintain a map oraddress range that directly maps addresses to erase blocks of the flashdrives of the flash storage system.

Direct mapping to the erase blocks of the flash drives may be used torewrite data and erase data. For example, the operations may beperformed on one or more allocation units that include a first data anda second data where the first data is to be retained and the second datais no longer being used by the flash storage system. The operatingsystem may initiate the process to write the first data to new locationswithin other allocation units and erasing the second data and markingthe allocation units as being available for use for subsequent data.Thus, the process may only be performed by the higher level operatingsystem of the flash storage system without an additional lower levelprocess being performed by controllers of the flash drives.

Advantages of the process being performed only by the operating systemof the flash storage system include increased reliability of the flashdrives of the flash storage system as unnecessary or redundant writeoperations are not being performed during the process. One possiblepoint of novelty here is the concept of initiating and controlling theprocess at the operating system of the flash storage system. Inaddition, the process can be controlled by the operating system acrossmultiple flash drives. This is contrast to the process being performedby a storage controller of a flash drive.

A storage system can consist of two storage array controllers that sharea set of drives for failover purposes, or it could consist of a singlestorage array controller that provides a storage service that utilizesmultiple drives, or it could consist of a distributed network of storagearray controllers each with some number of drives or some amount ofFlash storage where the storage array controllers in the networkcollaborate to provide a complete storage service and collaborate onvarious aspects of a storage service including storage allocation andgarbage collection.

FIG. 1C illustrates a third example system 117 for data storage inaccordance with some implementations. System 117 (also referred to as“storage system” herein) includes numerous elements for purposes ofillustration rather than limitation. It may be noted that system 117 mayinclude the same, more, or fewer elements configured in the same ordifferent manner in other implementations.

In one embodiment, system 117 includes a dual Peripheral ComponentInterconnect (‘PCI’) flash storage device 118 with separatelyaddressable fast write storage. System 117 may include a storagecontroller 119. In one embodiment, storage controller 119A-D may be aCPU, ASIC, FPGA, or any other circuitry that may implement controlstructures necessary according to the present disclosure. In oneembodiment, system 117 includes flash memory devices (e.g., includingflash memory devices 120 a-n), operatively coupled to various channelsof the storage device controller 119. Flash memory devices 120 a-n, maybe presented to the controller 119A-D as an addressable collection ofFlash pages, erase blocks, and/or control elements sufficient to allowthe storage device controller 119A-D to program and retrieve variousaspects of the Flash. In one embodiment, storage device controller119A-D may perform operations on flash memory devices 120 a-n includingstoring and retrieving data content of pages, arranging and erasing anyblocks, tracking statistics related to the use and reuse of Flash memorypages, erase blocks, and cells, tracking and predicting error codes andfaults within the Flash memory, controlling voltage levels associatedwith programming and retrieving contents of Flash cells, etc.

In one embodiment, system 117 may include RAM 121 to store separatelyaddressable fast-write data. In one embodiment, RAM 121 may be one ormore separate discrete devices. In another embodiment, RAM 121 may beintegrated into storage device controller 119A-D or multiple storagedevice controllers. The RAM 121 may be utilized for other purposes aswell, such as temporary program memory for a processing device (e.g., aCPU) in the storage device controller 119.

In one embodiment, system 117 may include a stored energy device 122,such as a rechargeable battery or a capacitor. Stored energy device 122may store energy sufficient to power the storage device controller 119,some amount of the RAM (e.g., RAM 121), and some amount of Flash memory(e.g., Flash memory 120 a-120 n) for sufficient time to write thecontents of RAM to Flash memory. In one embodiment, storage devicecontroller 119A-D may write the contents of RAM to Flash Memory if thestorage device controller detects loss of external power.

In one embodiment, system 117 includes two data communications links 123a, 123 b. In one embodiment, data communications links 123 a, 123 b maybe PCI interfaces. In another embodiment, data communications links 123a, 123 b may be based on other communications standards (e.g.,HyperTransport, InfiniBand, etc.). Data communications links 123 a, 123b may be based on non-volatile memory express (‘NVMe’) or NVMe overfabrics (‘NVMf’) specifications that allow external connection to thestorage device controller 119A-D from other components in the storagesystem 117. It should be noted that data communications links may beinterchangeably referred to herein as PCI buses for convenience.

System 117 may also include an external power source (not shown), whichmay be provided over one or both data communications links 123 a, 123 b,or which may be provided separately. An alternative embodiment includesa separate Flash memory (not shown) dedicated for use in storing thecontent of RAM 121. The storage device controller 119A-D may present alogical device over a PCI bus which may include an addressablefast-write logical device, or a distinct part of the logical addressspace of the storage device 118, which may be presented as PCI memory oras persistent storage. In one embodiment, operations to store into thedevice are directed into the RAM 121. On power failure, the storagedevice controller 119A-D may write stored content associated with theaddressable fast-write logical storage to Flash memory (e.g., Flashmemory 120 a-n) for long-term persistent storage.

In one embodiment, the logical device may include some presentation ofsome or all of the content of the Flash memory devices 120 a-n, wherethat presentation allows a storage system including a storage device 118(e.g., storage system 117) to directly address Flash memory pages anddirectly reprogram erase blocks from storage system components that areexternal to the storage device through the PCI bus. The presentation mayalso allow one or more of the external components to control andretrieve other aspects of the Flash memory including some or all of:tracking statistics related to use and reuse of Flash memory pages,erase blocks, and cells across all the Flash memory devices; trackingand predicting error codes and faults within and across the Flash memorydevices; controlling voltage levels associated with programming andretrieving contents of Flash cells; etc.

In one embodiment, the stored energy device 122 may be sufficient toensure completion of in-progress operations to the Flash memory devices120 a-120 n stored energy device 122 may power storage device controller119A-D and associated Flash memory devices (e.g., 120 a-n) for thoseoperations, as well as for the storing of fast-write RAM to Flashmemory. Stored energy device 122 may be used to store accumulatedstatistics and other parameters kept and tracked by the Flash memorydevices 120 a-n and/or the storage device controller 119. Separatecapacitors or stored energy devices (such as smaller capacitors near orembedded within the Flash memory devices themselves) may be used forsome or all of the operations described herein.

Various schemes may be used to track and optimize the life span of thestored energy component, such as adjusting voltage levels over time,partially discharging the storage energy device 122 to measurecorresponding discharge characteristics, etc. If the available energydecreases over time, the effective available capacity of the addressablefast-write storage may be decreased to ensure that it can be writtensafely based on the currently available stored energy.

FIG. 1D illustrates a third example system 124 for data storage inaccordance with some implementations. In one embodiment, system 124includes storage controllers 125 a, 125 b. In one embodiment, storagecontrollers 125 a, 125 b are operatively coupled to Dual PCI storagedevices 119 a, 119 b and 119 c, 119 d, respectively. Storage controllers125 a, 125 b may be operatively coupled (e.g., via a storage network130) to some number of host computers 127 a-n.

In one embodiment, two storage controllers (e.g., 125 a and 125 b)provide storage services, such as a SCS) block storage array, a fileserver, an object server, a database or data analytics service, etc. Thestorage controllers 125 a, 125 b may provide services through somenumber of network interfaces (e.g., 126 a-d) to host computers 127 a-noutside of the storage system 124. Storage controllers 125 a, 125 b mayprovide integrated services or an application entirely within thestorage system 124, forming a converged storage and compute system. Thestorage controllers 125 a, 125 b may utilize the fast write memorywithin or across storage devices 119 a-d to journal in progressoperations to ensure the operations are not lost on a power failure,storage controller removal, storage controller or storage systemshutdown, or some fault of one or more software or hardware componentswithin the storage system 124.

In one embodiment, controllers 125 a, 125 b operate as PCI masters toone or the other PCI buses 128 a, 128 b. In another embodiment, 128 aand 128 b may be based on other communications standards (e.g.,HyperTransport, InfiniBand, etc.). Other storage system embodiments mayoperate storage controllers 125 a, 125 b as multi-masters for both PCIbuses 128 a, 128 b. Alternately, a PCI/NVMe/NVMf switchinginfrastructure or fabric may connect multiple storage controllers. Somestorage system embodiments may allow storage devices to communicate witheach other directly rather than communicating only with storagecontrollers. In one embodiment, a storage device controller 119 a may beoperable under direction from a storage controller 125 a to synthesizeand transfer data to be stored into Flash memory devices from data thathas been stored in RAM (e.g., RAM 121 of FIG. 1C). For example, arecalculated version of RAM content may be transferred after a storagecontroller has determined that an operation has fully committed acrossthe storage system, or when fast-write memory on the device has reacheda certain used capacity, or after a certain amount of time, to ensureimprove safety of the data or to release addressable fast-write capacityfor reuse. This mechanism may be used, for example, to avoid a secondtransfer over a bus (e.g., 128 a, 128 b) from the storage controllers125 a, 125 b. In one embodiment, a recalculation may include compressingdata, attaching indexing or other metadata, combining multiple datasegments together, performing erasure code calculations, etc.

In one embodiment, under direction from a storage controller 125 a, 125b, a storage device controller 119 a, 119 b may be operable to calculateand transfer data to other storage devices from data stored in RAM(e.g., RAM 121 of FIG. 1C) without involvement of the storagecontrollers 125 a, 125 b. This operation may be used to mirror datastored in one controller 125 a to another controller 125 b, or it couldbe used to offload compression, data aggregation, and/or erasure codingcalculations and transfers to storage devices to reduce load on storagecontrollers or the storage controller interface 129 a, 129 b to the PCIbus 128 a, 128 b.

A storage device controller 119A-D may include mechanisms forimplementing high availability primitives for use by other parts of astorage system external to the Dual PCI storage device 118. For example,reservation or exclusion primitives may be provided so that, in astorage system with two storage controllers providing a highly availablestorage service, one storage controller may prevent the other storagecontroller from accessing or continuing to access the storage device.This could be used, for example, in cases where one controller detectsthat the other controller is not functioning properly or where theinterconnect between the two storage controllers may itself not befunctioning properly.

In one embodiment, a storage system for use with Dual PCI direct mappedstorage devices with separately addressable fast write storage includessystems that manage erase blocks or groups of erase blocks as allocationunits for storing data on behalf of the storage service, or for storingmetadata (e.g., indexes, logs, etc.) associated with the storageservice, or for proper management of the storage system itself. Flashpages, which may be a few kilobytes in size, may be written as dataarrives or as the storage system is to persist data for long intervalsof time (e.g., above a defined threshold of time). To commit data morequickly, or to reduce the number of writes to the Flash memory devices,the storage controllers may first write data into the separatelyaddressable fast write storage on one more storage devices.

In one embodiment, the storage controllers 125 a, 125 b may initiate theuse of erase blocks within and across storage devices (e.g., 118) inaccordance with an age and expected remaining lifespan of the storagedevices, or based on other statistics. The storage controllers 125 a,125 b may initiate garbage collection and data migration data betweenstorage devices in accordance with pages that are no longer needed aswell as to manage Flash page and erase block lifespans and to manageoverall system performance.

In one embodiment, the storage system 124 may utilize mirroring and/orerasure coding schemes as part of storing data into addressable fastwrite storage and/or as part of writing data into allocation unitsassociated with erase blocks. Erasure codes may be used across storagedevices, as well as within erase blocks or allocation units, or withinand across Flash memory devices on a single storage device, to provideredundancy against single or multiple storage device failures or toprotect against internal corruptions of Flash memory pages resultingfrom Flash memory operations or from degradation of Flash memory cells.Mirroring and erasure coding at various levels may be used to recoverfrom multiple types of failures that occur separately or in combination.

The embodiments depicted with reference to FIGS. 2A-G illustrate astorage cluster that stores user data, such as user data originatingfrom one or more user or client systems or other sources external to thestorage cluster. The storage cluster distributes user data acrossstorage nodes housed within a chassis, or across multiple chassis, usingerasure coding and redundant copies of metadata. Erasure coding refersto a method of data protection or reconstruction in which data is storedacross a set of different locations, such as disks, storage nodes orgeographic locations. Flash memory is one type of solid-state memorythat may be integrated with the embodiments, although the embodimentsmay be extended to other types of solid-state memory or other storagemedium, including non-solid state memory. Control of storage locationsand workloads are distributed across the storage locations in aclustered peer-to-peer system. Tasks such as mediating communicationsbetween the various storage nodes, detecting when a storage node hasbecome unavailable, and balancing I/Os (inputs and outputs) across thevarious storage nodes, are all handled on a distributed basis. Data islaid out or distributed across multiple storage nodes in data fragmentsor stripes that support data recovery in some embodiments. Ownership ofdata can be reassigned within a cluster, independent of input and outputpatterns. This architecture described in more detail below allows astorage node in the cluster to fail, with the system remainingoperational, since the data can be reconstructed from other storagenodes and thus remain available for input and output operations. Invarious embodiments, a storage node may be referred to as a clusternode, a blade, or a server.

The storage cluster may be contained within a chassis, i.e., anenclosure housing one or more storage nodes. A mechanism to providepower to each storage node, such as a power distribution bus, and acommunication mechanism, such as a communication bus that enablescommunication between the storage nodes are included within the chassis.The storage cluster can run as an independent system in one locationaccording to some embodiments. In one embodiment, a chassis contains atleast two instances of both the power distribution and the communicationbus which may be enabled or disabled independently. The internalcommunication bus may be an Ethernet bus, however, other technologiessuch as PCIe, InfiniBand, and others, are equally suitable. The chassisprovides a port for an external communication bus for enablingcommunication between multiple chassis, directly or through a switch,and with client systems. The external communication may use a technologysuch as Ethernet, InfiniBand, Fibre Channel, etc. In some embodiments,the external communication bus uses different communication bustechnologies for inter-chassis and client communication. If a switch isdeployed within or between chassis, the switch may act as a translationbetween multiple protocols or technologies. When multiple chassis areconnected to define a storage cluster, the storage cluster may beaccessed by a client using either proprietary interfaces or standardinterfaces such as network file system (‘NFS’), common internet filesystem (‘CIFS’), small computer system interface (‘SCSI’) or hypertexttransfer protocol (‘HTTP’). Translation from the client protocol mayoccur at the switch, chassis external communication bus or within eachstorage node. In some embodiments, multiple chassis may be coupled orconnected to each other through an aggregator switch. A portion and/orall of the coupled or connected chassis may be designated as a storagecluster. As discussed above, each chassis can have multiple blades, eachblade has a media access control (‘MAC’) address, but the storagecluster is presented to an external network as having a single clusterIP address and a single MAC address in some embodiments.

Each storage node may be one or more storage servers and each storageserver is connected to one or more non-volatile solid state memoryunits, which may be referred to as storage units or storage devices. Oneembodiment includes a single storage server in each storage node andbetween one to eight non-volatile solid state memory units, however thisone example is not meant to be limiting. The storage server may includea processor, DRAM and interfaces for the internal communication bus andpower distribution for each of the power buses. Inside the storage node,the interfaces and storage unit share a communication bus, e.g., PCIExpress, in some embodiments. The non-volatile solid state memory unitsmay directly access the internal communication bus interface through astorage node communication bus, or request the storage node to accessthe bus interface. The non-volatile solid state memory unit contains anembedded CPU, solid state storage controller, and a quantity of solidstate mass storage, e.g., between 2-32 terabytes (‘TB’) in someembodiments. An embedded volatile storage medium, such as DRAM, and anenergy reserve apparatus are included in the non-volatile solid statememory unit. In some embodiments, the energy reserve apparatus is acapacitor, super-capacitor, or battery that enables transferring asubset of DRAM contents to a stable storage medium in the case of powerloss. In some embodiments, the non-volatile solid state memory unit isconstructed with a storage class memory, such as phase change ormagnetoresistive random access memory (‘MRAM’) that substitutes for DRAMand enables a reduced power hold-up apparatus.

One of many features of the storage nodes and non-volatile solid statestorage is the ability to proactively rebuild data in a storage cluster.The storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storage can determinewhen a storage node or non-volatile solid state storage in the storagecluster is unreachable, independent of whether there is an attempt toread data involving that storage node or non-volatile solid statestorage. The storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storage thencooperate to recover and rebuild the data in at least partially newlocations. This constitutes a proactive rebuild, in that the systemrebuilds data without waiting until the data is needed for a read accessinitiated from a client system employing the storage cluster. These andfurther details of the storage memory and operation thereof arediscussed below.

FIG. 2A is a perspective view of a storage cluster 161, with multiplestorage nodes 150 and internal solid-state memory coupled to eachstorage node to provide network attached storage or storage areanetwork, in accordance with some embodiments. A network attachedstorage, storage area network, or a storage cluster, or other storagememory, could include one or more storage clusters 161, each having oneor more storage nodes 150, in a flexible and reconfigurable arrangementof both the physical components and the amount of storage memoryprovided thereby. The storage cluster 161 is designed to fit in a rack,and one or more racks can be set up and populated as desired for thestorage memory. The storage cluster 161 has a chassis 138 havingmultiple slots 142. It should be appreciated that chassis 138 may bereferred to as a housing, enclosure, or rack unit. In one embodiment,the chassis 138 has fourteen slots 142, although other numbers of slotsare readily devised. For example, some embodiments have four slots,eight slots, sixteen slots, thirty-two slots, or other suitable numberof slots. Each slot 142 can accommodate one storage node 150 in someembodiments. Chassis 138 includes flaps 148 that can be utilized tomount the chassis 138 on a rack. Fans 144 provide air circulation forcooling of the storage nodes 150 and components thereof, although othercooling components could be used, or an embodiment could be devisedwithout cooling components. A switch fabric 146 couples storage nodes150 within chassis 138 together and to a network for communication tothe memory. In an embodiment depicted in herein, the slots 142 to theleft of the switch fabric 146 and fans 144 are shown occupied by storagenodes 150, while the slots 142 to the right of the switch fabric 146 andfans 144 are empty and available for insertion of storage node 150 forillustrative purposes. This configuration is one example, and one ormore storage nodes 150 could occupy the slots 142 in various furtherarrangements. The storage node arrangements need not be sequential oradjacent in some embodiments. Storage nodes 150 are hot pluggable,meaning that a storage node 150 can be inserted into a slot 142 in thechassis 138, or removed from a slot 142, without stopping or poweringdown the system. Upon insertion or removal of storage node 150 from slot142, the system automatically reconfigures in order to recognize andadapt to the change. Reconfiguration, in some embodiments, includesrestoring redundancy and/or rebalancing data or load.

Each storage node 150 can have multiple components. In the embodimentshown here, the storage node 150 includes a printed circuit board 159populated by a CPU 156, i.e., processor, a memory 154 coupled to the CPU156, and a non-volatile solid state storage 152 coupled to the CPU 156,although other mountings and/or components could be used in furtherembodiments. The memory 154 has instructions which are executed by theCPU 156 and/or data operated on by the CPU 156. As further explainedbelow, the non-volatile solid state storage 152 includes flash or, infurther embodiments, other types of solid-state memory.

Referring to FIG. 2A, storage cluster 161 is scalable, meaning thatstorage capacity with non-uniform storage sizes is readily added, asdescribed above. One or more storage nodes 150 can be plugged into orremoved from each chassis and the storage cluster self-configures insome embodiments. Plug-in storage nodes 150, whether installed in achassis as delivered or later added, can have different sizes. Forexample, in one embodiment a storage node 150 can have any multiple of 4TB, e.g., 8 TB, 12 TB, 16 TB, 32 TB, etc. In further embodiments, astorage node 150 could have any multiple of other storage amounts orcapacities. Storage capacity of each storage node 150 is broadcast, andinfluences decisions of how to stripe the data. For maximum storageefficiency, an embodiment can self-configure as wide as possible in thestripe, subject to a predetermined requirement of continued operationwith loss of up to one, or up to two, non-volatile solid state storageunits 152 or storage nodes 150 within the chassis.

FIG. 2B is a block diagram showing a communications interconnect 173 andpower distribution bus 172 coupling multiple storage nodes 150.Referring back to FIG. 2A, the communications interconnect 173 can beincluded in or implemented with the switch fabric 146 in someembodiments. Where multiple storage clusters 161 occupy a rack, thecommunications interconnect 173 can be included in or implemented with atop of rack switch, in some embodiments. As illustrated in FIG. 2B,storage cluster 161 is enclosed within a single chassis 138. Externalport 176 is coupled to storage nodes 150 through communicationsinterconnect 173, while external port 174 is coupled directly to astorage node. External power port 178 is coupled to power distributionbus 172. Storage nodes 150 may include varying amounts and differingcapacities of non-volatile solid state storage 152 as described withreference to FIG. 2A. In addition, one or more storage nodes 150 may bea compute only storage node as illustrated in FIG. 2B. Authorities 168are implemented on the non-volatile solid state storages 152, forexample as lists or other data structures stored in memory. In someembodiments the authorities are stored within the non-volatile solidstate storage 152 and supported by software executing on a controller orother processor of the non-volatile solid state storage 152. In afurther embodiment, authorities 168 are implemented on the storage nodes150, for example as lists or other data structures stored in the memory154 and supported by software executing on the CPU 156 of the storagenode 150. Authorities 168 control how and where data is stored in thenon-volatile solid state storages 152 in some embodiments. This controlassists in determining which type of erasure coding scheme is applied tothe data, and which storage nodes 150 have which portions of the data.Each authority 168 may be assigned to a non-volatile solid state storage152. Each authority may control a range of inode numbers, segmentnumbers, or other data identifiers which are assigned to data by a filesystem, by the storage nodes 150, or by the non-volatile solid statestorage 152, in various embodiments.

Every piece of data, and every piece of metadata, has redundancy in thesystem in some embodiments. In addition, every piece of data and everypiece of metadata has an owner, which may be referred to as anauthority. If that authority is unreachable, for example through failureof a storage node, there is a plan of succession for how to find thatdata or that metadata. In various embodiments, there are redundantcopies of authorities 168. Authorities 168 have a relationship tostorage nodes 150 and non-volatile solid state storage 152 in someembodiments. Each authority 168, covering a range of data segmentnumbers or other identifiers of the data, may be assigned to a specificnon-volatile solid state storage 152. In some embodiments theauthorities 168 for all of such ranges are distributed over thenon-volatile solid state storages 152 of a storage cluster. Each storagenode 150 has a network port that provides access to the non-volatilesolid state storage(s) 152 of that storage node 150. Data can be storedin a segment, which is associated with a segment number and that segmentnumber is an indirection for a configuration of a RAID (redundant arrayof independent disks) stripe in some embodiments. The assignment and useof the authorities 168 thus establishes an indirection to data.Indirection may be referred to as the ability to reference dataindirectly, in this case via an authority 168, in accordance with someembodiments. A segment identifies a set of non-volatile solid statestorage 152 and a local identifier into the set of non-volatile solidstate storage 152 that may contain data. In some embodiments, the localidentifier is an offset into the device and may be reused sequentiallyby multiple segments. In other embodiments the local identifier isunique for a specific segment and never reused. The offsets in thenon-volatile solid state storage 152 are applied to locating data forwriting to or reading from the non-volatile solid state storage 152 (inthe form of a RAID stripe). Data is striped across multiple units ofnon-volatile solid state storage 152, which may include or be differentfrom the non-volatile solid state storage 152 having the authority 168for a particular data segment.

If there is a change in where a particular segment of data is located,e.g., during a data move or a data reconstruction, the authority 168 forthat data segment should be consulted, at that non-volatile solid statestorage 152 or storage node 150 having that authority 168. In order tolocate a particular piece of data, embodiments calculate a hash valuefor a data segment or apply an inode number or a data segment number.The output of this operation points to a non-volatile solid statestorage 152 having the authority 168 for that particular piece of data.In some embodiments there are two stages to this operation. The firststage maps an entity identifier (ID), e.g., a segment number, inodenumber, or directory number to an authority identifier. This mapping mayinclude a calculation such as a hash or a bit mask. The second stage ismapping the authority identifier to a particular non-volatile solidstate storage 152, which may be done through an explicit mapping. Theoperation is repeatable, so that when the calculation is performed, theresult of the calculation repeatably and reliably points to a particularnon-volatile solid state storage 152 having that authority 168. Theoperation may include the set of reachable storage nodes as input. Ifthe set of reachable non-volatile solid state storage units changes theoptimal set changes. In some embodiments, the persisted value is thecurrent assignment (which is always true) and the calculated value isthe target assignment the cluster will attempt to reconfigure towards.This calculation may be used to determine the optimal non-volatile solidstate storage 152 for an authority in the presence of a set ofnon-volatile solid state storage 152 that are reachable and constitutethe same cluster. The calculation also determines an ordered set of peernon-volatile solid state storage 152 that will also record the authorityto non-volatile solid state storage mapping so that the authority may bedetermined even if the assigned non-volatile solid state storage isunreachable. A duplicate or substitute authority 168 may be consulted ifa specific authority 168 is unavailable in some embodiments.

With reference to FIGS. 2A and 2B, two of the many tasks of the CPU 156on a storage node 150 are to break up write data, and reassemble readdata. When the system has determined that data is to be written, theauthority 168 for that data is located as above. When the segment ID fordata is already determined the request to write is forwarded to thenon-volatile solid state storage 152 currently determined to be the hostof the authority 168 determined from the segment. The host CPU 156 ofthe storage node 150, on which the non-volatile solid state storage 152and corresponding authority 168 reside, then breaks up or shards thedata and transmits the data out to various non-volatile solid statestorage 152. The transmitted data is written as a data stripe inaccordance with an erasure coding scheme. In some embodiments, data isrequested to be pulled, and in other embodiments, data is pushed. Inreverse, when data is read, the authority 168 for the segment IDcontaining the data is located as described above. The host CPU 156 ofthe storage node 150 on which the non-volatile solid state storage 152and corresponding authority 168 reside requests the data from thenon-volatile solid state storage and corresponding storage nodes pointedto by the authority. In some embodiments the data is read from flashstorage as a data stripe. The host CPU 156 of storage node 150 thenreassembles the read data, correcting any errors (if present) accordingto the appropriate erasure coding scheme, and forwards the reassembleddata to the network. In further embodiments, some or all of these taskscan be handled in the non-volatile solid state storage 152. In someembodiments, the segment host requests the data be sent to storage node150 by requesting pages from storage and then sending the data to thestorage node making the original request.

In embodiments, authorities 168 operate to determine how operations willproceed against particular logical elements. Each of the logicalelements may be operated on through a particular authority across aplurality of storage controllers of a storage system. The authorities168 may communicate with the plurality of storage controllers so thatthe plurality of storage controllers collectively perform operationsagainst those particular logical elements.

In embodiments, logical elements could be, for example, files,directories, object buckets, individual objects, delineated parts offiles or objects, other forms of key-value pair databases, or tables. Inembodiments, performing an operation can involve, for example, ensuringconsistency, structural integrity, and/or recoverability with otheroperations against the same logical element, reading metadata and dataassociated with that logical element, determining what data should bewritten durably into the storage system to persist any changes for theoperation, or where metadata and data can be determined to be storedacross modular storage devices attached to a plurality of the storagecontrollers in the storage system.

In some embodiments the operations are token based transactions toefficiently communicate within a distributed system. Each transactionmay be accompanied by or associated with a token, which gives permissionto execute the transaction. The authorities 168 are able to maintain apre-transaction state of the system until completion of the operation insome embodiments. The token based communication may be accomplishedwithout a global lock across the system, and also enables restart of anoperation in case of a disruption or other failure.

In some systems, for example in UNIX-style file systems, data is handledwith an index node or inode, which specifies a data structure thatrepresents an object in a file system. The object could be a file or adirectory, for example. Metadata may accompany the object, as attributessuch as permission data and a creation timestamp, among otherattributes. A segment number could be assigned to all or a portion ofsuch an object in a file system. In other systems, data segments arehandled with a segment number assigned elsewhere. For purposes ofdiscussion, the unit of distribution is an entity, and an entity can bea file, a directory or a segment. That is, entities are units of data ormetadata stored by a storage system. Entities are grouped into setscalled authorities. Each authority has an authority owner, which is astorage node that has the exclusive right to update the entities in theauthority. In other words, a storage node contains the authority, andthat the authority, in turn, contains entities.

A segment is a logical container of data in accordance with someembodiments. A segment is an address space between medium address spaceand physical flash locations, i.e., the data segment number, are in thisaddress space. Segments may also contain meta-data, which enable dataredundancy to be restored (rewritten to different flash locations ordevices) without the involvement of higher level software. In oneembodiment, an internal format of a segment contains client data andmedium mappings to determine the position of that data. Each datasegment is protected, e.g., from memory and other failures, by breakingthe segment into a number of data and parity shards, where applicable.The data and parity shards are distributed, i.e., striped, acrossnon-volatile solid state storage 152 coupled to the host CPUs 156 (SeeFIGS. 2E and 2G) in accordance with an erasure coding scheme. Usage ofthe term segments refers to the container and its place in the addressspace of segments in some embodiments. Usage of the term stripe refersto the same set of shards as a segment and includes how the shards aredistributed along with redundancy or parity information in accordancewith some embodiments.

A series of address-space transformations takes place across an entirestorage system. At the top are the directory entries (file names) whichlink to an inode. Modes point into medium address space, where data islogically stored. Medium addresses may be mapped through a series ofindirect mediums to spread the load of large files, or implement dataservices like deduplication or snapshots. Medium addresses may be mappedthrough a series of indirect mediums to spread the load of large files,or implement data services like deduplication or snapshots. Segmentaddresses are then translated into physical flash locations. Physicalflash locations have an address range bounded by the amount of flash inthe system in accordance with some embodiments. Medium addresses andsegment addresses are logical containers, and in some embodiments use a128 bit or larger identifier so as to be practically infinite, with alikelihood of reuse calculated as longer than the expected life of thesystem. Addresses from logical containers are allocated in ahierarchical fashion in some embodiments. Initially, each non-volatilesolid state storage unit 152 may be assigned a range of address space.Within this assigned range, the non-volatile solid state storage 152 isable to allocate addresses without synchronization with othernon-volatile solid state storage 152.

Data and metadata is stored by a set of underlying storage layouts thatare optimized for varying workload patterns and storage devices. Theselayouts incorporate multiple redundancy schemes, compression formats andindex algorithms. Some of these layouts store information aboutauthorities and authority masters, while others store file metadata andfile data. The redundancy schemes include error correction codes thattolerate corrupted bits within a single storage device (such as a NANDflash chip), erasure codes that tolerate the failure of multiple storagenodes, and replication schemes that tolerate data center or regionalfailures. In some embodiments, low density parity check (‘LDPC’) code isused within a single storage unit. Reed-Solomon encoding is used withina storage cluster, and mirroring is used within a storage grid in someembodiments. Metadata may be stored using an ordered log structuredindex (such as a Log Structured Merge Tree), and large data may not bestored in a log structured layout.

In order to maintain consistency across multiple copies of an entity,the storage nodes agree implicitly on two things through calculations:(1) the authority that contains the entity, and (2) the storage nodethat contains the authority. The assignment of entities to authoritiescan be done by pseudo randomly assigning entities to authorities, bysplitting entities into ranges based upon an externally produced key, orby placing a single entity into each authority. Examples of pseudorandomschemes are linear hashing and the Replication Under Scalable Hashing(‘RUSH’) family of hashes, including Controlled Replication UnderScalable Hashing (‘CRUSH’). In some embodiments, pseudo-randomassignment is utilized only for assigning authorities to nodes becausethe set of nodes can change. The set of authorities cannot change so anysubjective function may be applied in these embodiments. Some placementschemes automatically place authorities on storage nodes, while otherplacement schemes rely on an explicit mapping of authorities to storagenodes. In some embodiments, a pseudorandom scheme is utilized to mapfrom each authority to a set of candidate authority owners. Apseudorandom data distribution function related to CRUSH may assignauthorities to storage nodes and create a list of where the authoritiesare assigned. Each storage node has a copy of the pseudorandom datadistribution function, and can arrive at the same calculation fordistributing, and later finding or locating an authority. Each of thepseudorandom schemes requires the reachable set of storage nodes asinput in some embodiments in order to conclude the same target nodes.Once an entity has been placed in an authority, the entity may be storedon physical devices so that no expected failure will lead to unexpecteddata loss. In some embodiments, rebalancing algorithms attempt to storethe copies of all entities within an authority in the same layout and onthe same set of machines.

Examples of expected failures include device failures, stolen machines,datacenter fires, and regional disasters, such as nuclear or geologicalevents. Different failures lead to different levels of acceptable dataloss. In some embodiments, a stolen storage node impacts neither thesecurity nor the reliability of the system, while depending on systemconfiguration, a regional event could lead to no loss of data, a fewseconds or minutes of lost updates, or even complete data loss.

In the embodiments, the placement of data for storage redundancy isindependent of the placement of authorities for data consistency. Insome embodiments, storage nodes that contain authorities do not containany persistent storage. Instead, the storage nodes are connected tonon-volatile solid state storage units that do not contain authorities.The communications interconnect between storage nodes and non-volatilesolid state storage units consists of multiple communicationtechnologies and has non-uniform performance and fault tolerancecharacteristics. In some embodiments, as mentioned above, non-volatilesolid state storage units are connected to storage nodes via PCIexpress, storage nodes are connected together within a single chassisusing Ethernet backplane, and chassis are connected together to form astorage cluster. Storage clusters are connected to clients usingEthernet or fiber channel in some embodiments. If multiple storageclusters are configured into a storage grid, the multiple storageclusters are connected using the Internet or other long-distancenetworking links, such as a “metro scale” link or private link that doesnot traverse the internet.

Authority owners have the exclusive right to modify entities, to migrateentities from one non-volatile solid state storage unit to anothernon-volatile solid state storage unit, and to add and remove copies ofentities. This allows for maintaining the redundancy of the underlyingdata. When an authority owner fails, is going to be decommissioned, oris overloaded, the authority is transferred to a new storage node.Transient failures make it non-trivial to ensure that all non-faultymachines agree upon the new authority location. The ambiguity thatarises due to transient failures can be achieved automatically by aconsensus protocol such as Paxos, hot-warm failover schemes, via manualintervention by a remote system administrator, or by a local hardwareadministrator (such as by physically removing the failed machine fromthe cluster, or pressing a button on the failed machine). In someembodiments, a consensus protocol is used, and failover is automatic. Iftoo many failures or replication events occur in too short a timeperiod, the system goes into a self-preservation mode and haltsreplication and data movement activities until an administratorintervenes in accordance with some embodiments.

As authorities are transferred between storage nodes and authorityowners update entities in their authorities, the system transfersmessages between the storage nodes and non-volatile solid state storageunits. With regard to persistent messages, messages that have differentpurposes are of different types. Depending on the type of the message,the system maintains different ordering and durability guarantees. Asthe persistent messages are being processed, the messages aretemporarily stored in multiple durable and non-durable storage hardwaretechnologies. In some embodiments, messages are stored in RAM, NVRAM andon NAND flash devices, and a variety of protocols are used in order tomake efficient use of each storage medium. Latency-sensitive clientrequests may be persisted in replicated NVRAM, and then later NAND,while background rebalancing operations are persisted directly to NAND.

Persistent messages are persistently stored prior to being transmitted.This allows the system to continue to serve client requests despitefailures and component replacement. Although many hardware componentscontain unique identifiers that are visible to system administrators,manufacturer, hardware supply chain and ongoing monitoring qualitycontrol infrastructure, applications running on top of theinfrastructure address virtualize addresses. These virtualized addressesdo not change over the lifetime of the storage system, regardless ofcomponent failures and replacements. This allows each component of thestorage system to be replaced over time without reconfiguration ordisruptions of client request processing, i.e., the system supportsnon-disruptive upgrades.

In some embodiments, the virtualized addresses are stored withsufficient redundancy. A continuous monitoring system correlateshardware and software status and the hardware identifiers. This allowsdetection and prediction of failures due to faulty components andmanufacturing details. The monitoring system also enables the proactivetransfer of authorities and entities away from impacted devices beforefailure occurs by removing the component from the critical path in someembodiments.

FIG. 2C is a multiple level block diagram, showing contents of a storagenode 150 and contents of a non-volatile solid state storage 152 of thestorage node 150. Data is communicated to and from the storage node 150by a network interface controller (‘NIC’) 202 in some embodiments. Eachstorage node 150 has a CPU 156, and one or more non-volatile solid statestorage 152, as discussed above. Moving down one level in FIG. 2C, eachnon-volatile solid state storage 152 has a relatively fast non-volatilesolid state memory, such as nonvolatile random access memory (‘NVRAM’)204, and flash memory 206. In some embodiments, NVRAM 204 may be acomponent that does not require program/erase cycles (DRAM, MRAM, PCM),and can be a memory that can support being written vastly more oftenthan the memory is read from. Moving down another level in FIG. 2C, theNVRAM 204 is implemented in one embodiment as high speed volatilememory, such as dynamic random access memory (DRAM) 216, backed up byenergy reserve 218. Energy reserve 218 provides sufficient electricalpower to keep the DRAM 216 powered long enough for contents to betransferred to the flash memory 206 in the event of power failure. Insome embodiments, energy reserve 218 is a capacitor, super-capacitor,battery, or other device, that supplies a suitable supply of energysufficient to enable the transfer of the contents of DRAM 216 to astable storage medium in the case of power loss. The flash memory 206 isimplemented as multiple flash dies 222, which may be referred to aspackages of flash dies 222 or an array of flash dies 222. It should beappreciated that the flash dies 222 could be packaged in any number ofways, with a single die per package, multiple dies per package (i.e.multichip packages), in hybrid packages, as bare dies on a printedcircuit board or other substrate, as encapsulated dies, etc. In theembodiment shown, the non-volatile solid state storage 152 has acontroller 212 or other processor, and an input output (I/O) port 210coupled to the controller 212. I/O port 210 is coupled to the CPU 156and/or the network interface controller 202 of the flash storage node150. Flash input output (I/O) port 220 is coupled to the flash dies 222,and a direct memory access unit (DMA) 214 is coupled to the controller212, the DRAM 216 and the flash dies 222. In the embodiment shown, theI/O port 210, controller 212, DMA unit 214 and flash I/O port 220 areimplemented on a programmable logic device (‘PLD’) 208, e.g., an FPGA.In this embodiment, each flash die 222 has pages, organized as sixteenkB (kilobyte) pages 224, and a register 226 through which data can bewritten to or read from the flash die 222. In further embodiments, othertypes of solid-state memory are used in place of, or in addition toflash memory illustrated within flash die 222.

Storage clusters 161, in various embodiments as disclosed herein, can becontrasted with storage arrays in general. The storage nodes 150 arepart of a collection that creates the storage cluster 161. Each storagenode 150 owns a slice of data and computing required to provide thedata. Multiple storage nodes 150 cooperate to store and retrieve thedata. Storage memory or storage devices, as used in storage arrays ingeneral, are less involved with processing and manipulating the data.Storage memory or storage devices in a storage array receive commands toread, write, or erase data. The storage memory or storage devices in astorage array are not aware of a larger system in which they areembedded, or what the data means. Storage memory or storage devices instorage arrays can include various types of storage memory, such as RAM,solid state drives, hard disk drives, etc. The storage units 152described herein have multiple interfaces active simultaneously andserving multiple purposes. In some embodiments, some of thefunctionality of a storage node 150 is shifted into a storage unit 152,transforming the storage unit 152 into a combination of storage unit 152and storage node 150. Placing computing (relative to storage data) intothe storage unit 152 places this computing closer to the data itself.The various system embodiments have a hierarchy of storage node layerswith different capabilities. By contrast, in a storage array, acontroller owns and knows everything about all of the data that thecontroller manages in a shelf or storage devices. In a storage cluster161, as described herein, multiple controllers in multiple storage units152 and/or storage nodes 150 cooperate in various ways (e.g., forerasure coding, data sharding, metadata communication and redundancy,storage capacity expansion or contraction, data recovery, and so on).

FIG. 2D shows a storage server environment, which uses embodiments ofthe storage nodes 150 and storage units 152 of FIGS. 2A-C. In thisversion, each storage unit 152 has a processor such as controller 212(see FIG. 2C), an FPGA, flash memory 206, and NVRAM 204 (which issuper-capacitor backed DRAM 216, see FIGS. 2B and 2C) on a PCIe(peripheral component interconnect express) board in a chassis 138 (seeFIG. 2A). The storage unit 152 may be implemented as a single boardcontaining storage, and may be the largest tolerable failure domaininside the chassis. In some embodiments, up to two storage units 152 mayfail and the device will continue with no data loss.

The physical storage is divided into named regions based on applicationusage in some embodiments. The NVRAM 204 is a contiguous block ofreserved memory in the storage unit 152 DRAM 216, and is backed by NANDflash. NVRAM 204 is logically divided into multiple memory regionswritten for two as spool (e.g., spool region). Space within the NVRAM204 spools is managed by each authority 168 independently. Each deviceprovides an amount of storage space to each authority 168. Thatauthority 168 further manages lifetimes and allocations within thatspace. Examples of a spool include distributed transactions or notions.When the primary power to a storage unit 152 fails, onboardsuper-capacitors provide a short duration of power hold up. During thisholdup interval, the contents of the NVRAM 204 are flushed to flashmemory 206. On the next power-on, the contents of the NVRAM 204 arerecovered from the flash memory 206.

As for the storage unit controller, the responsibility of the logical“controller” is distributed across each of the blades containingauthorities 168. This distribution of logical control is shown in FIG.2D as a host controller 242, mid-tier controller 244 and storage unitcontroller(s) 246. Management of the control plane and the storage planeare treated independently, although parts may be physically co-locatedon the same blade. Each authority 168 effectively serves as anindependent controller. Each authority 168 provides its own data andmetadata structures, its own background workers, and maintains its ownlifecycle.

FIG. 2E is a blade 252 hardware block diagram, showing a control plane254, compute and storage planes 256, 258, and authorities 168interacting with underlying physical resources, using embodiments of thestorage nodes 150 and storage units 152 of FIGS. 2A-C in the storageserver environment of FIG. 2D. The control plane 254 is partitioned intoa number of authorities 168 which can use the compute resources in thecompute plane 256 to run on any of the blades 252. The storage plane 258is partitioned into a set of devices, each of which provides access toflash 206 and NVRAM 204 resources. In one embodiment, the compute plane256 may perform the operations of a storage array controller, asdescribed herein, on one or more devices of the storage plane 258 (e.g.,a storage array).

In the compute and storage planes 256, 258 of FIG. 2E, the authorities168 interact with the underlying physical resources (i.e., devices).From the point of view of an authority 168, its resources are stripedover all of the physical devices. From the point of view of a device, itprovides resources to all authorities 168, irrespective of where theauthorities happen to run. Each authority 168 has allocated or has beenallocated one or more partitions 260 of storage memory in the storageunits 152, e.g. partitions 260 in flash memory 206 and NVRAM 204. Eachauthority 168 uses those allocated partitions 260 that belong to it, forwriting or reading user data. Authorities can be associated withdiffering amounts of physical storage of the system. For example, oneauthority 168 could have a larger number of partitions 260 or largersized partitions 260 in one or more storage units 152 than one or moreother authorities 168.

FIG. 2F depicts elasticity software layers in blades 252 of a storagecluster, in accordance with some embodiments. In the elasticitystructure, elasticity software is symmetric, i.e., each blade's computemodule 270 runs the three identical layers of processes depicted in FIG.2F. Storage managers 274 execute read and write requests from otherblades 252 for data and metadata stored in local storage unit 152 NVRAM204 and flash 206. Authorities 168 fulfill client requests by issuingthe necessary reads and writes to the blades 252 on whose storage units152 the corresponding data or metadata resides. Endpoints 272 parseclient connection requests received from switch fabric 146 supervisorysoftware, relay the client connection requests to the authorities 168responsible for fulfillment, and relay the authorities' 168 responses toclients. The symmetric three-layer structure enables the storagesystem's high degree of concurrency. Elasticity scales out efficientlyand reliably in these embodiments. In addition, elasticity implements aunique scale-out technique that balances work evenly across allresources regardless of client access pattern, and maximizes concurrencyby eliminating much of the need for inter-blade coordination thattypically occurs with conventional distributed locking.

Still referring to FIG. 2F, authorities 168 running in the computemodules 270 of a blade 252 perform the internal operations required tofulfill client requests. One feature of elasticity is that authorities168 are stateless, i.e., they cache active data and metadata in theirown blades' 252 DRAMs for fast access, but the authorities store everyupdate in their NVRAM 204 partitions on three separate blades 252 untilthe update has been written to flash 206. All the storage system writesto NVRAM 204 are in triplicate to partitions on three separate blades252 in some embodiments. With triple-mirrored NVRAM 204 and persistentstorage protected by parity and Reed-Solomon RAID checksums, the storagesystem can survive concurrent failure of two blades 252 with no loss ofdata, metadata, or access to either.

Because authorities 168 are stateless, they can migrate between blades252. Each authority 168 has a unique identifier. NVRAM 204 and flash 206partitions are associated with authorities' 168 identifiers, not withthe blades 252 on which they are running in some. Thus, when anauthority 168 migrates, the authority 168 continues to manage the samestorage partitions from its new location. When a new blade 252 isinstalled in an embodiment of the storage cluster, the systemautomatically rebalances load by: partitioning the new blade's 252storage for use by the system's authorities 168, migrating selectedauthorities 168 to the new blade 252, starting endpoints 272 on the newblade 252 and including them in the switch fabric's 146 clientconnection distribution algorithm.

From their new locations, migrated authorities 168 persist the contentsof their NVRAM 204 partitions on flash 206, process read and writerequests from other authorities 168, and fulfill the client requeststhat endpoints 272 direct to them. Similarly, if a blade 252 fails or isremoved, the system redistributes its authorities 168 among the system'sremaining blades 252. The redistributed authorities 168 continue toperform their original functions from their new locations.

FIG. 2G depicts authorities 168 and storage resources in blades 252 of astorage cluster, in accordance with some embodiments. Each authority 168is exclusively responsible for a partition of the flash 206 and NVRAM204 on each blade 252. The authority 168 manages the content andintegrity of its partitions independently of other authorities 168.Authorities 168 compress incoming data and preserve it temporarily intheir NVRAM 204 partitions, and then consolidate, RAID-protect, andpersist the data in segments of the storage in their flash 206partitions. As the authorities 168 write data to flash 206, storagemanagers 274 perform the necessary flash translation to optimize writeperformance and maximize media longevity. In the background, authorities168 “garbage collect,” or reclaim space occupied by data that clientshave made obsolete by overwriting the data. It should be appreciatedthat since authorities' 168 partitions are disjoint, there is no needfor distributed locking to execute client and writes or to performbackground functions.

The embodiments described herein may utilize various software,communication and/or networking protocols. In addition, theconfiguration of the hardware and/or software may be adjusted toaccommodate various protocols. For example, the embodiments may utilizeActive Directory, which is a database based system that providesauthentication, directory, policy, and other services in a WINDOWS'environment. In these embodiments, LDAP (Lightweight Directory AccessProtocol) is one example application protocol for querying and modifyingitems in directory service providers such as Active Directory. In someembodiments, a network lock manager (‘NLM’) is utilized as a facilitythat works in cooperation with the Network File System (‘NFS’) toprovide a System V style of advisory file and record locking over anetwork. The Server Message Block (‘SMB’) protocol, one version of whichis also known as Common Internet File System (‘CIFS’), may be integratedwith the storage systems discussed herein. SMP operates as anapplication-layer network protocol typically used for providing sharedaccess to files, printers, and serial ports and miscellaneouscommunications between nodes on a network. SMB also provides anauthenticated inter-process communication mechanism. AMAZON™ S3 (SimpleStorage Service) is a web service offered by Amazon Web Services, andthe systems described herein may interface with Amazon S3 through webservices interfaces (REST (representational state transfer), SOAP(simple object access protocol), and BitTorrent). A RESTful API(application programming interface) breaks down a transaction to createa series of small modules. Each module addresses a particular underlyingpart of the transaction. The control or permissions provided with theseembodiments, especially for object data, may include utilization of anaccess control list (‘ACL’). The ACL is a list of permissions attachedto an object and the ACL specifies which users or system processes aregranted access to objects, as well as what operations are allowed ongiven objects. The systems may utilize Internet Protocol version 6(‘IPv6’), as well as IPv4, for the communications protocol that providesan identification and location system for computers on networks androutes traffic across the Internet. The routing of packets betweennetworked systems may include Equal-cost multi-path routing (‘ECMP’),which is a routing strategy where next-hop packet forwarding to a singledestination can occur over multiple “best paths” which tie for top placein routing metric calculations. Multi-path routing can be used inconjunction with most routing protocols, because it is a per-hopdecision limited to a single router. The software may supportMulti-tenancy, which is an architecture in which a single instance of asoftware application serves multiple customers. Each customer may bereferred to as a tenant. Tenants may be given the ability to customizesome parts of the application, but may not customize the application'scode, in some embodiments. The embodiments may maintain audit logs. Anaudit log is a document that records an event in a computing system. Inaddition to documenting what resources were accessed, audit log entriestypically include destination and source addresses, a timestamp, anduser login information for compliance with various regulations. Theembodiments may support various key management policies, such asencryption key rotation. In addition, the system may support dynamicroot passwords or some variation dynamically changing passwords.

FIG. 3A sets forth a diagram of a storage system 306 that is coupled fordata communications with a cloud services provider 302 in accordancewith some embodiments of the present disclosure. Although depicted inless detail, the storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3A may be similarto the storage systems described above with reference to FIGS. 1A-1D andFIGS. 2A-2G. In some embodiments, the storage system 306 depicted inFIG. 3A may be embodied as a storage system that includes imbalancedactive/active controllers, as a storage system that includes balancedactive/active controllers, as a storage system that includesactive/active controllers where less than all of each controller'sresources are utilized such that each controller has reserve resourcesthat may be used to support failover, as a storage system that includesfully active/active controllers, as a storage system that includesdataset-segregated controllers, as a storage system that includesdual-layer architectures with front-end controllers and back-endintegrated storage controllers, as a storage system that includesscale-out clusters of dual-controller arrays, as well as combinations ofsuch embodiments.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, the storage system 306 is coupled tothe cloud services provider 302 via a data communications link 304. Thedata communications link 304 may be embodied as a dedicated datacommunications link, as a data communications pathway that is providedthrough the use of one or data communications networks such as a widearea network (‘WAN’) or LAN, or as some other mechanism capable oftransporting digital information between the storage system 306 and thecloud services provider 302. Such a data communications link 304 may befully wired, fully wireless, or some aggregation of wired and wirelessdata communications pathways. In such an example, digital informationmay be exchanged between the storage system 306 and the cloud servicesprovider 302 via the data communications link 304 using one or more datacommunications protocols. For example, digital information may beexchanged between the storage system 306 and the cloud services provider302 via the data communications link 304 using the handheld devicetransfer protocol (‘HDTP’), hypertext transfer protocol (‘HTTP’),internet protocol (‘IP’), real-time transfer protocol (‘RTP’),transmission control protocol (‘TCP’), user datagram protocol (‘UDP’),wireless application protocol (‘WAP’), or other protocol.

The cloud services provider 302 depicted in FIG. 3A may be embodied, forexample, as a system and computing environment that provides a vastarray of services to users of the cloud services provider 302 throughthe sharing of computing resources via the data communications link 304.The cloud services provider 302 may provide on-demand access to a sharedpool of configurable computing resources such as computer networks,servers, storage, applications and services, and so on. The shared poolof configurable resources may be rapidly provisioned and released to auser of the cloud services provider 302 with minimal management effort.Generally, the user of the cloud services provider 302 is unaware of theexact computing resources utilized by the cloud services provider 302 toprovide the services. Although in many cases such a cloud servicesprovider 302 may be accessible via the Internet, readers of skill in theart will recognize that any system that abstracts the use of sharedresources to provide services to a user through any data communicationslink may be considered a cloud services provider 302.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, the cloud services provider 302 maybe configured to provide a variety of services to the storage system 306and users of the storage system 306 through the implementation ofvarious service models. For example, the cloud services provider 302 maybe configured to provide services through the implementation of aninfrastructure as a service (‘IaaS’) service model, through theimplementation of a platform as a service (‘PaaS’) service model,through the implementation of a software as a service (‘SaaS’) servicemodel, through the implementation of an authentication as a service(‘AaaS’) service model, through the implementation of a storage as aservice model where the cloud services provider 302 offers access to itsstorage infrastructure for use by the storage system 306 and users ofthe storage system 306, and so on. Readers will appreciate that thecloud services provider 302 may be configured to provide additionalservices to the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306through the implementation of additional service models, as the servicemodels described above are included only for explanatory purposes and inno way represent a limitation of the services that may be offered by thecloud services provider 302 or a limitation as to the service modelsthat may be implemented by the cloud services provider 302.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, the cloud services provider 302 maybe embodied, for example, as a private cloud, as a public cloud, or as acombination of a private cloud and public cloud. In an embodiment inwhich the cloud services provider 302 is embodied as a private cloud,the cloud services provider 302 may be dedicated to providing servicesto a single organization rather than providing services to multipleorganizations. In an embodiment where the cloud services provider 302 isembodied as a public cloud, the cloud services provider 302 may provideservices to multiple organizations. In still alternative embodiments,the cloud services provider 302 may be embodied as a mix of a privateand public cloud services with a hybrid cloud deployment.

Although not explicitly depicted in FIG. 3A, readers will appreciatethat a vast amount of additional hardware components and additionalsoftware components may be necessary to facilitate the delivery of cloudservices to the storage system 306 and users of the storage system 306.For example, the storage system 306 may be coupled to (or even include)a cloud storage gateway. Such a cloud storage gateway may be embodied,for example, as hardware-based or software-based appliance that islocated on premise with the storage system 306. Such a cloud storagegateway may operate as a bridge between local applications that areexecuting on the storage array 306 and remote, cloud-based storage thatis utilized by the storage array 306. Through the use of a cloud storagegateway, organizations may move primary iSCSI or NAS to the cloudservices provider 302, thereby enabling the organization to save spaceon their on-premises storage systems. Such a cloud storage gateway maybe configured to emulate a disk array, a block-based device, a fileserver, or other storage system that can translate the SCSI commands,file server commands, or other appropriate command into REST-spaceprotocols that facilitate communications with the cloud servicesprovider 302.

In order to enable the storage system 306 and users of the storagesystem 306 to make use of the services provided by the cloud servicesprovider 302, a cloud migration process may take place during whichdata, applications, or other elements from an organization's localsystems (or even from another cloud environment) are moved to the cloudservices provider 302. In order to successfully migrate data,applications, or other elements to the cloud services provider's 302environment, middleware such as a cloud migration tool may be utilizedto bridge gaps between the cloud services provider's 302 environment andan organization's environment. Such cloud migration tools may also beconfigured to address potentially high network costs and long transfertimes associated with migrating large volumes of data to the cloudservices provider 302, as well as addressing security concernsassociated with sensitive data to the cloud services provider 302 overdata communications networks. In order to further enable the storagesystem 306 and users of the storage system 306 to make use of theservices provided by the cloud services provider 302, a cloudorchestrator may also be used to arrange and coordinate automated tasksin pursuit of creating a consolidated process or workflow. Such a cloudorchestrator may perform tasks such as configuring various components,whether those components are cloud components or on-premises components,as well as managing the interconnections between such components. Thecloud orchestrator can simplify the inter-component communication andconnections to ensure that links are correctly configured andmaintained.

In the example depicted in FIG. 3A, and as described briefly above, thecloud services provider 302 may be configured to provide services to thestorage system 306 and users of the storage system 306 through the usageof a SaaS service model, eliminating the need to install and run theapplication on local computers, which may simplify maintenance andsupport of the application. Such applications may take many forms inaccordance with various embodiments of the present disclosure. Forexample, the cloud services provider 302 may be configured to provideaccess to data analytics applications to the storage system 306 andusers of the storage system 306. Such data analytics applications may beconfigured, for example, to receive vast amounts of telemetry dataphoned home by the storage system 306. Such telemetry data may describevarious operating characteristics of the storage system 306 and may beanalyzed for a vast array of purposes including, for example, todetermine the health of the storage system 306, to identify workloadsthat are executing on the storage system 306, to predict when thestorage system 306 will run out of various resources, to recommendconfiguration changes, hardware or software upgrades, workflowmigrations, or other actions that may improve the operation of thestorage system 306.

The cloud services provider 302 may also be configured to provide accessto virtualized computing environments to the storage system 306 andusers of the storage system 306. Such virtualized computing environmentsmay be embodied, for example, as a virtual machine or other virtualizedcomputer hardware platforms, virtual storage devices, virtualizedcomputer network resources, and so on. Examples of such virtualizedenvironments can include virtual machines that are created to emulate anactual computer, virtualized desktop environments that separate alogical desktop from a physical machine, virtualized file systems thatallow uniform access to different types of concrete file systems, andmany others.

Although the example depicted in FIG. 3A illustrates the storage system306 being coupled for data communications with the cloud servicesprovider 302, in other embodiments the storage system 306 may be part ofa hybrid cloud deployment in which private cloud elements (e.g., privatecloud services, on-premises infrastructure, and so on) and public cloudelements (e.g., public cloud services, infrastructure, and so on thatmay be provided by one or more cloud services providers) are combined toform a single solution, with orchestration among the various platforms.Such a hybrid cloud deployment may leverage hybrid cloud managementsoftware such as, for example, Azure™ Arc from Microsoft™, thatcentralize the management of the hybrid cloud deployment to anyinfrastructure and enable the deployment of services anywhere. In suchan example, the hybrid cloud management software may be configured tocreate, update, and delete resources (both physical and virtual) thatform the hybrid cloud deployment, to allocate compute and storage tospecific workloads, to monitor workloads and resources for performance,policy compliance, updates and patches, security status, or to perform avariety of other tasks.

Readers will appreciate that by pairing the storage systems describedherein with one or more cloud services providers, various offerings maybe enabled. For example, disaster recovery as a service (‘DRaaS’) may beprovided where cloud resources are utilized to protect applications anddata from disruption caused by disaster, including in embodiments wherethe storage systems may serve as the primary data store. In suchembodiments, a total system backup may be taken that allows for businesscontinuity in the event of system failure. In such embodiments, clouddata backup techniques (by themselves or as part of a larger DRaaSsolution) may also be integrated into an overall solution that includesthe storage systems and cloud services providers described herein.

The storage systems described herein, as well as the cloud servicesproviders, may be utilized to provide a wide array of security features.For example, the storage systems may encrypt data at rest (and data maybe sent to and from the storage systems encrypted) and may make use ofKey Management-as-a-Service (‘KMaaS’) to manage encryption keys, keysfor locking and unlocking storage devices, and so on. Likewise, clouddata security gateways or similar mechanisms may be utilized to ensurethat data stored within the storage systems does not improperly end upbeing stored in the cloud as part of a cloud data backup operation.Furthermore, microsegmentation or identity-based-segmentation may beutilized in a data center that includes the storage systems or withinthe cloud services provider, to create secure zones in data centers andcloud deployments that enables the isolation of workloads from oneanother.

For further explanation, FIG. 3B sets forth a diagram of a storagesystem 306 in accordance with some embodiments of the presentdisclosure. Although depicted in less detail, the storage system 306depicted in FIG. 3B may be similar to the storage systems describedabove with reference to FIGS. 1A-1D and FIGS. 2A-2G as the storagesystem may include many of the components described above.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may include a vast amount ofstorage resources 308, which may be embodied in many forms. For example,the storage resources 308 can include nano-RAM or another form ofnonvolatile random access memory that utilizes carbon nanotubesdeposited on a substrate, 3D crosspoint non-volatile memory, flashmemory including single-level cell (‘SLC’) NAND flash, multi-level cell(‘MLC’) NAND flash, triple-level cell (‘TLC’) NAND flash, quad-levelcell (‘QLC’) NAND flash, or others. Likewise, the storage resources 308may include non-volatile magnetoresistive random-access memory (‘MRAM’),including spin transfer torque (‘STT’) MRAM. The example storageresources 308 may alternatively include non-volatile phase-change memory(‘PCM’), quantum memory that allows for the storage and retrieval ofphotonic quantum information, resistive random-access memory (‘ReRAM’),storage class memory (‘SCM’), or other form of storage resources,including any combination of resources described herein. Readers willappreciate that other forms of computer memories and storage devices maybe utilized by the storage systems described above, including DRAM,SRAM, EEPROM, universal memory, and many others. The storage resources308 depicted in FIG. 3A may be embodied in a variety of form factors,including but not limited to, dual in-line memory modules (‘DIMMs’),non-volatile dual in-line memory modules (‘NVDIMMs’), M.2, U.2, andothers.

The storage resources 308 depicted in FIG. 3B may include various formsof SCM. SCM may effectively treat fast, non-volatile memory (e.g., NANDflash) as an extension of DRAM such that an entire dataset may betreated as an in-memory dataset that resides entirely in DRAM. SCM mayinclude non-volatile media such as, for example, NAND flash. Such NANDflash may be accessed utilizing NVMe that can use the PCIe bus as itstransport, providing for relatively low access latencies compared toolder protocols. In fact, the network protocols used for SSDs inall-flash arrays can include NVMe using Ethernet (ROCE, NVME TCP), FibreChannel (NVMe FC), InfiniBand (iWARP), and others that make it possibleto treat fast, non-volatile memory as an extension of DRAM. In view ofthe fact that DRAM is often byte-addressable and fast, non-volatilememory such as NAND flash is block-addressable, a controllersoftware/hardware stack may be needed to convert the block data to thebytes that are stored in the media. Examples of media and software thatmay be used as SCM can include, for example, 3D XPoint, Intel MemoryDrive Technology, Samsung's Z-SSD, and others.

The storage resources 308 depicted in FIG. 3B may also include racetrackmemory (also referred to as domain-wall memory). Such racetrack memorymay be embodied as a form of non-volatile, solid-state memory thatrelies on the intrinsic strength and orientation of the magnetic fieldcreated by an electron as it spins in addition to its electronic charge,in solid-state devices. Through the use of spin-coherent electriccurrent to move magnetic domains along a nanoscopic permalloy wire, thedomains may pass by magnetic read/write heads positioned near the wireas current is passed through the wire, which alter the domains to recordpatterns of bits. In order to create a racetrack memory device, manysuch wires and read/write elements may be packaged together.

The example storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may implement avariety of storage architectures. For example, storage systems inaccordance with some embodiments of the present disclosure may utilizeblock storage where data is stored in blocks, and each block essentiallyacts as an individual hard drive. Storage systems in accordance withsome embodiments of the present disclosure may utilize object storage,where data is managed as objects. Each object may include the dataitself, a variable amount of metadata, and a globally unique identifier,where object storage can be implemented at multiple levels (e.g., devicelevel, system level, interface level). Storage systems in accordancewith some embodiments of the present disclosure utilize file storage inwhich data is stored in a hierarchical structure. Such data may be savedin files and folders, and presented to both the system storing it andthe system retrieving it in the same format.

The example storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may be embodied as astorage system in which additional storage resources can be addedthrough the use of a scale-up model, additional storage resources can beadded through the use of a scale-out model, or through some combinationthereof. In a scale-up model, additional storage may be added by addingadditional storage devices. In a scale-out model, however, additionalstorage nodes may be added to a cluster of storage nodes, where suchstorage nodes can include additional processing resources, additionalnetworking resources, and so on.

The example storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B may leverage thestorage resources described above in a variety of different ways. Forexample, some portion of the storage resources may be utilized to serveas a write cache where data is initially written to storage resourceswith relatively fast write latencies, relatively high write bandwidth,or similar characteristics. In such an example, data that is written tothe storage resources that serve as a write cache may later be writtento other storage resources that may be characterized by slower writelatencies, lower write bandwidth, or similar characteristics than thestorage resources that are utilized to serve as a write cache. In asimilar manner, storage resources within the storage system may beutilized as a read cache, where the read cache is populated inaccordance with a set of predetermined rules or heuristics. In otherembodiments, tiering may be achieved within the storage systems byplacing data within the storage system in accordance with one or morepolicies such that, for example, data that is accessed frequently isstored in faster storage tiers while data that is accessed infrequentlyis stored in slower storage tiers.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B also includes communicationsresources 310 that may be useful in facilitating data communicationsbetween components within the storage system 306, as well as datacommunications between the storage system 306 and computing devices thatare outside of the storage system 306, including embodiments where thoseresources are separated by a relatively vast expanse. The communicationsresources 310 may be configured to utilize a variety of differentprotocols and data communication fabrics to facilitate datacommunications between components within the storage systems as well ascomputing devices that are outside of the storage system. For example,the communications resources 310 can include fibre channel (‘FC’)technologies such as FC fabrics and FC protocols that can transport SCSIcommands over FC network, FC over ethernet (‘FCoE’) technologies throughwhich FC frames are encapsulated and transmitted over Ethernet networks,InfiniBand (‘IB’) technologies in which a switched fabric topology isutilized to facilitate transmissions between channel adapters, NVMExpress (‘NVMe’) technologies and NVMe over fabrics (‘NVMeoF’)technologies through which non-volatile storage media attached via a PCIexpress (‘PCIe’) bus may be accessed, and others. In fact, the storagesystems described above may, directly or indirectly, make use ofneutrino communication technologies and devices through whichinformation (including binary information) is transmitted using a beamof neutrinos.

The communications resources 310 can also include mechanisms foraccessing storage resources 308 within the storage system 306 utilizingserial attached SCSI (‘SAS’), serial ATA (‘SATA’) bus interfaces forconnecting storage resources 308 within the storage system 306 to hostbus adapters within the storage system 306, internet small computersystems interface (‘iSCSI’) technologies to provide block-level accessto storage resources 308 within the storage system 306, and othercommunications resources that that may be useful in facilitating datacommunications between components within the storage system 306, as wellas data communications between the storage system 306 and computingdevices that are outside of the storage system 306.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B also includes processingresources 312 that may be useful in useful in executing computer programinstructions and performing other computational tasks within the storagesystem 306. The processing resources 312 may include one or more ASICsthat are customized for some particular purpose as well as one or moreCPUs. The processing resources 312 may also include one or more DSPs,one or more FPGAs, one or more systems on a chip (‘SoCs’), or other formof processing resources 312. The storage system 306 may utilize thestorage resources 312 to perform a variety of tasks including, but notlimited to, supporting the execution of software resources 314 that willbe described in greater detail below.

The storage system 306 depicted in FIG. 3B also includes softwareresources 314 that, when executed by processing resources 312 within thestorage system 306, may perform a vast array of tasks. The softwareresources 314 may include, for example, one or more modules of computerprogram instructions that when executed by processing resources 312within the storage system 306 are useful in carrying out various dataprotection techniques to preserve the integrity of data that is storedwithin the storage systems. Readers will appreciate that such dataprotection techniques may be carried out, for example, by systemsoftware executing on computer hardware within the storage system, by acloud services provider, or in other ways. Such data protectiontechniques can include, for example, data archiving techniques thatcause data that is no longer actively used to be moved to a separatestorage device or separate storage system for long-term retention, databackup techniques through which data stored in the storage system may becopied and stored in a distinct location to avoid data loss in the eventof equipment failure or some other form of catastrophe with the storagesystem, data replication techniques through which data stored in thestorage system is replicated to another storage system such that thedata may be accessible via multiple storage systems, data snapshottingtechniques through which the state of data within the storage system iscaptured at various points in time, data and database cloning techniquesthrough which duplicate copies of data and databases may be created, andother data protection techniques.

The software resources 314 may also include software that is useful inimplementing software-defined storage (‘SDS’). In such an example, thesoftware resources 314 may include one or more modules of computerprogram instructions that, when executed, are useful in policy-basedprovisioning and management of data storage that is independent of theunderlying hardware. Such software resources 314 may be useful inimplementing storage virtualization to separate the storage hardwarefrom the software that manages the storage hardware.

The software resources 314 may also include software that is useful infacilitating and optimizing I/O operations that are directed to thestorage resources 308 in the storage system 306. For example, thesoftware resources 314 may include software modules that perform carryout various data reduction techniques such as, for example, datacompression, data deduplication, and others. The software resources 314may include software modules that intelligently group together I/Ooperations to facilitate better usage of the underlying storage resource308, software modules that perform data migration operations to migratefrom within a storage system, as well as software modules that performother functions. Such software resources 314 may be embodied as one ormore software containers or in many other ways.

For further explanation, the embodiments may be integrated into acloud-based storage system. In this example, the cloud-based storagesystem is created entirely in a cloud computing environment such as, forexample, Amazon Web Services (‘AWS’), Microsoft Azure, Google CloudPlatform, IBM Cloud, Oracle Cloud, and others. The cloud-based storagesystem may be used to provide services similar to the services that maybe provided by the storage systems described above. For example, thecloud-based storage system may be used to provide block storage servicesto users of the cloud-based storage system, the cloud-based storagesystem may be used to provide storage services to users of thecloud-based storage system through the use of solid-state storage, andso on.

The cloud-based storage system may include two cloud computing instancesthat each are used to support the execution of a storage controllerapplication. The cloud computing instances may be embodied, for example,as instances of cloud computing resources (e.g., virtual machines) thatmay be provided by the cloud computing environment to support theexecution of software applications such as the storage controllerapplication. In one embodiment, the cloud computing instances may beembodied as Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (‘EC2’) instances. In such anexample, an Amazon Machine Image (‘AMI’) that includes a storagecontroller application may be booted to create and configure a virtualmachine that may execute the storage controller application.

A storage controller application may be embodied as a module of computerprogram instructions that, when executed, carries out various storagetasks. For example, the storage controller application may be embodiedas a module of computer program instructions that, when executed,carries out the same tasks as the controllers 110A, 110B in FIG. 1Adescribed above such as writing data received from the users of thecloud-based storage system to the cloud-based storage system, erasingdata from the cloud-based storage system, retrieving data from thecloud-based storage system and providing such data to users of thecloud-based storage system, monitoring and reporting of disk utilizationand performance, performing redundancy operations, such as RAID orRAID-like data redundancy operations, compressing data, encrypting data,deduplicating data, and so forth. Readers will appreciate that there aretwo cloud computing instances each may include a storage controllerapplication, in some embodiments one cloud computing instance mayoperate as the primary controller as described above while the othercloud computing instance may operate as the secondary controller asdescribed above. Readers will appreciate that the storage controllerapplication may include identical source code that is executed withindifferent cloud computing instances.

Consider an example in which the cloud computing environment is embodiedas AWS and the cloud computing instances are embodied as EC2 instances.In such an example, the cloud computing instance that operates as theprimary controller may be deployed on one of the instance types that hasa relatively large amount of memory and processing power while the cloudcomputing instance that operates as the secondary controller may bedeployed on one of the instance types that has a relatively small amountof memory and processing power. In such an example, upon the occurrenceof a failover event where the roles of primary and secondary areswitched, a double failover may actually be carried out such that: 1) afirst failover event where the cloud computing instance that formerlyoperated as the secondary controller begins to operate as the primarycontroller, and 2) a third cloud computing instance (not shown) that isof an instance type that has a relatively large amount of memory andprocessing power is spun up with a copy of the storage controllerapplication, where the third cloud computing instance begins operatingas the primary controller while the cloud computing instance thatoriginally operated as the secondary controller begins operating as thesecondary controller again. In such an example, the cloud computinginstance that formerly operated as the primary controller may beterminated. Readers will appreciate that in alternative embodiments, thecloud computing instance that is operating as the secondary controllerafter the failover event may continue to operate as the secondarycontroller and the cloud computing instance that operated as the primarycontroller after the occurrence of the failover event may be terminatedonce the primary role has been assumed by the third cloud computinginstance (not shown).

Readers will appreciate that while the embodiments described aboverelate to embodiments where one cloud computing instance operates as theprimary controller and the second cloud computing instance operates asthe secondary controller, other embodiments are within the scope of thepresent disclosure. For example, each cloud computing instance mayoperate as a primary controller for some portion of the address spacesupported by the cloud-based storage system, each cloud computinginstance may operate as a primary controller where the servicing of I/Ooperations directed to the cloud-based storage system are divided insome other way, and so on. In fact, in other embodiments where costssavings may be prioritized over performance demands, only a single cloudcomputing instance may exist that contains the storage controllerapplication.

The cloud-based storage system may include cloud computing instanceswith local storage. The cloud computing instances may be embodied, forexample, as instances of cloud computing resources that may be providedby the cloud computing environment to support the execution of softwareapplications. The cloud computing instances may-have localstorage-resources. The cloud computing instances with local storage maybe embodied, for example, as EC2 M5 instances that include one or moreSSDs, as EC2 R5 instances that include one or more SSDs, as EC2 I3instances that include one or more SSDs, and so on. In some embodiments,the local storage must be embodied as solid-state storage (e.g., SSDs)rather than storage that makes use of hard disk drives.

Each of the cloud computing instances with local storage can include asoftware daemon that, when executed by a cloud computing instance canpresent itself to the storage controller applications as if the cloudcomputing instance were a physical storage device (e.g., one or moreSSDs). In such an example, the software daemon may include computerprogram instructions similar to those that would normally be containedon a storage device such that the storage controller applications cansend and receive the same commands that a storage controller would sendto storage devices. In such a way, the storage controller applicationsmay include code that is identical to (or substantially identical to)the code that would be executed by the controllers in the storagesystems described above. In these and similar embodiments,communications between the storage controller applications and the cloudcomputing instances with local storage may utilize iSCSI, NVMe over TCP,messaging, a custom protocol, or in some other mechanism.

Each of the cloud computing instances with local storage may also becoupled to block-storage that is offered by the cloud computingenvironment. The block-storage that is offered by the cloud computingenvironment may be embodied, for example, as Amazon Elastic Block Store(‘EBS’) volumes. For example, a first EBS volume may be coupled to afirst cloud computing instance, a second EBS volume may be coupled to asecond cloud computing instance, and a third EBS volume may be coupledto a third cloud computing instance. In such an example, theblock-storage that is offered by the cloud computing environment.

may be utilized in a manner that is similar to how the NVRAM devicesdescribed above are utilized, as the software daemon (or some othermodule) that is executing within a particular cloud comping instancemay, upon receiving a request to write data, initiate a write of thedata to its attached EBS volume as well as a write of the data to itslocal storage resources. In some alternative embodiments, data may onlybe written to the local storage resources within a particular cloudcomping instance. In an alternative embodiment, rather than using theblock-storage that is offered by the cloud computing environment asNVRAM, actual RAM on each of the cloud computing instances with localstorage may be used as NVRAM, thereby decreasing network utilizationcosts that would be associated with using an EBS volume as the NVRAM.

The cloud computing instances with local storage may be utilized, bycloud computing instances that support the execution of the storagecontroller application to service I/O operations that are directed tothe cloud-based storage system. Consider an example in which a firstcloud computing instance that is executing the storage controllerapplication is operating as the primary controller. In such an example,the first cloud computing instance that is executing the storagecontroller application may receive (directly or indirectly via thesecondary controller) requests to write data to the cloud-based storagesystem from users of the cloud-based storage system. In such an example,the first cloud computing instance that is executing the storagecontroller application may perform various tasks such as, for example,deduplicating the data contained in the request, compressing the datacontained in the request, determining where to the write the datacontained in the request, and so on, before ultimately sending a requestto write a deduplicated, encrypted, or otherwise possibly updatedversion of the data to one or more of the cloud computing instances withlocal storage. Either cloud computing instance, in some embodiments, mayreceive a request to read data from the cloud-based storage system andmay ultimately send a request to read data to one or more of the cloudcomputing instances with local storage.

Readers will appreciate that when a request to write data is received bya particular cloud computing instance with local storage the softwaredaemon or some other module of computer program instructions that isexecuting on the particular cloud computing instance may be configuredto not only write the data to its own local storage resources and anyappropriate block-storage that are offered by the cloud computingenvironment, but the software daemon or some other module of computerprogram instructions that is executing on the particular cloud computinginstance may also be configured to write the data to cloud-based objectstorage that is attached to the particular cloud computing instance. Thecloud-based object storage that is attached to the particular cloudcomputing instance may be embodied, for example, as Amazon SimpleStorage Service (‘S3’) storage that is accessible by the particularcloud computing instance. In other embodiments, the cloud computinginstances that each include the storage controller application mayinitiate the storage of the data in the local storage of the cloudcomputing instances and the cloud-based object storage.

Readers will appreciate that, as described above, the cloud-basedstorage system may be used to provide block storage services to users ofthe cloud-based storage system. While the local storage resources andthe block-storage resources that are utilized by the cloud computinginstances may support block-level access, the cloud-based object storagethat is attached to the particular cloud computing instance supportsonly object-based access. In order to address this, the software daemonor some other module of computer program instructions that is executingon the particular cloud computing instance may be configured to takeblocks of data, package those blocks into objects, and write the objectsto the cloud-based object storage that is attached to the particularcloud computing instance.

Consider an example in which data is written to the local storageresources and the block-storage resources that are utilized by the cloudcomputing instances in 1 MB blocks. In such an example, assume that auser of the cloud-based storage system issues a request to write datathat, after being compressed and deduplicated by the storage controllerapplication results in the need to write 5 MB of data. In such anexample, writing the data to the local storage resources and theblock-storage resources that are utilized by the cloud computinginstances is relatively straightforward as 5 blocks that are 1 MB insize are written to the local storage resources and the block-storageresources that are utilized by the cloud computing instances. In such anexample, the software daemon or some other module of computer programinstructions that is executing on the particular cloud computinginstance may be configured to: 1) create a first object that includesthe first 1 MB of data and write the first object to the cloud-basedobject storage, 2) create a second object that includes the second 1 MBof data and write the second object to the cloud-based object storage,3) create a third object that includes the third 1 MB of data and writethe third object to the cloud-based object storage, and so on. As such,in some embodiments, each object that is written to the cloud-basedobject storage may be identical (or nearly identical) in size. Readerswill appreciate that in such an example, metadata that is associatedwith the data itself may be included in each object (e.g., the first 1MB of the object is data and the remaining portion is metadataassociated with the data).

Readers will appreciate that the cloud-based object storage may beincorporated into the cloud-based storage system to increase thedurability of the cloud-based storage system. Continuing with theexample described above where the cloud computing instances are EC2instances, readers will understand that EC2 instances are onlyguaranteed to have a monthly uptime of 99.9% and data stored in thelocal instance store only persists during the lifetime of the EC2instance. As such, relying on the cloud computing instances with localstorage as the only source of persistent data storage in the cloud-basedstorage system may result in a relatively unreliable storage system.Likewise, EBS volumes are designed for 99.999% availability. As such,even relying on EBS as the persistent data store in the cloud-basedstorage system may result in a storage system that is not sufficientlydurable. Amazon S3, however, is designed to provide 99.999999999%durability, meaning that a cloud-based storage system that canincorporate S3 into its pool of storage is substantially more durablethan various other options.

Readers will appreciate that while a cloud-based storage system that canincorporate S3 into its pool of storage is substantially more durablethan various other options, utilizing S3 as the primary pool of storagemay result in storage system that has relatively slow response times andrelatively long I/O latencies. As such, the cloud-based storage systemmay not only stores data in S3 but the cloud-based storage system alsostores data in local storage resources and block-storage resources thatare utilized by the cloud computing instances, such that read operationscan be serviced from local storage resources and the block-storageresources that are utilized by the cloud computing instances, therebyreducing read latency when users of the cloud-based storage systemattempt to read data from the cloud-based storage system.

In some embodiments, all data that is stored by the cloud-based storagesystem may be stored in both: 1) the cloud-based object storage, and 2)at least one of the local storage resources or block-storage resourcesthat are utilized by the cloud computing instances. In such embodiments,the local storage resources and block-storage resources that areutilized by the cloud computing instances may effectively operate ascache that generally includes all data that is also stored in S3, suchthat all reads of data may be serviced by the cloud computing instanceswithout requiring the cloud computing instances to access thecloud-based object storage. Readers will appreciate that in otherembodiments, however, all data that is stored by the cloud-based storagesystem may be stored in the cloud-based object storage, but less thanall data that is stored by the cloud-based storage system may be storedin at least one of the local storage resources or block-storageresources that are utilized by the cloud computing instances. In such anexample, various policies may be utilized to determine which subset ofthe data that is stored by the cloud-based storage system should residein both: 1) the cloud-based object storage, and 2) at least one of thelocal storage resources or block-storage resources that are utilized bythe cloud computing instances.

As described above, when the cloud computing instances with localstorage are embodied as EC2 instances, the cloud computing instanceswith local storage are only guaranteed to have a monthly uptime of 99.9%and data stored in the local instance store only persists during thelifetime of each cloud computing instance with local storage. As such,one or more modules of computer program instructions that are executingwithin the cloud-based storage system (e.g., a monitoring module that isexecuting on its own EC2 instance) may be designed to handle the failureof one or more of the cloud computing instances with local storage. Insuch an example, the monitoring module may handle the failure of one ormore of the cloud computing instances with local storage by creating oneor more new cloud computing instances with local storage, retrievingdata that was stored on the failed cloud computing instances from thecloud-based object storage, and storing the data retrieved from thecloud-based object storage in local storage on the newly created cloudcomputing instances. Readers will appreciate that many variants of thisprocess may be implemented.

Consider an example in which all cloud computing instances with localstorage failed. In such an example, the monitoring module may create newcloud computing instances with local storage, where high-bandwidthinstances types are selected that allow for the maximum data transferrates between the newly created high-bandwidth cloud computing instanceswith local storage and the cloud-based object storage. Readers willappreciate that instances types are selected that allow for the maximumdata transfer rates between the new cloud computing instances and thecloud-based object storage such that the new high-bandwidth cloudcomputing instances can be rehydrated with data from the cloud-basedobject storage as quickly as possible. Once the new high-bandwidth cloudcomputing instances are rehydrated with data from the cloud-based objectstorage, less expensive lower-bandwidth cloud computing instances may becreated, data may be migrated to the less expensive lower-bandwidthcloud computing instances, and the high-bandwidth cloud computinginstances may be terminated.

Readers will appreciate that in some embodiments, the number of newcloud computing instances that are created may substantially exceed thenumber of cloud computing instances that are needed to locally store allof the data stored by the cloud-based storage system. The number of newcloud computing instances that are created may substantially exceed thenumber of cloud computing instances that are needed to locally store allof the data stored by the cloud-based storage system in order to morerapidly pull data from the cloud-based object storage and into the newcloud computing instances, as each new cloud computing instance can (inparallel) retrieve some portion of the data stored by the cloud-basedstorage system. In such embodiments, once the data stored by thecloud-based storage system has been pulled into the newly created cloudcomputing instances, the data may be consolidated within a subset of thenewly created cloud computing instances and those newly created cloudcomputing instances that are excessive may be terminated.

Consider an example in which 1000 cloud computing instances are neededin order to locally store all valid data that users of the cloud-basedstorage system have written to the cloud-based storage system. In suchan example, assume that all 1,000 cloud computing instances fail. Insuch an example, the monitoring module may cause 100,000 cloud computinginstances to be created, where each cloud computing instance isresponsible for retrieving, from the cloud-based object storage,distinct 1/100,000th chunks of the valid data that users of thecloud-based storage system have written to the cloud-based storagesystem and locally storing the distinct chunk of the dataset that itretrieved. In such an example, because each of the 100,000 cloudcomputing instances can retrieve data from the cloud-based objectstorage in parallel, the caching layer may be restored 100 times fasteras compared to an embodiment where the monitoring module only create1000 replacement cloud computing instances. In such an example, overtime the data that is stored locally in the 100,000 could beconsolidated into 1,000 cloud computing instances and the remaining99,000 cloud computing instances could be terminated.

Readers will appreciate that various performance aspects of thecloud-based storage system may be monitored (e.g., by a monitoringmodule that is executing in an EC2 instance) such that the cloud-basedstorage system can be scaled-up or scaled-out as needed. Consider anexample in which the monitoring module monitors the performance of thecould-based storage system via communications with one or more of thecloud computing instances that each are used to support the execution ofa storage controller application via monitoring communications betweencloud computing instances, via monitoring communications between cloudcomputing instances and the cloud-based object storage, or in some otherway. In such an example, assume that the monitoring module determinesthat the cloud computing instances that are used to support theexecution of a storage controller application are undersized and notsufficiently servicing the I/O requests that are issued by users of thecloud-based storage system. In such an example, the monitoring modulemay create a new, more powerful cloud computing instance (e.g., a cloudcomputing instance of a type that includes more processing power, morememory, etc. . . . ) that includes the storage controller applicationsuch that the new, more powerful cloud computing instance can beginoperating as the primary controller. Likewise, if the monitoring moduledetermines that the cloud computing instances that are used to supportthe execution of a storage controller application are oversized and thatcost savings could be gained by switching to a smaller, less powerfulcloud computing instance, the monitoring module may create a new, lesspowerful (and less expensive) cloud computing instance that includes thestorage controller application such that the new, less powerful cloudcomputing instance can begin operating as the primary controller.

Consider, as an additional example of dynamically sizing the cloud-basedstorage system, an example in which the monitoring module determinesthat the utilization of the local storage that is collectively providedby the cloud computing instances has reached a predetermined utilizationthreshold (e.g., 95%). In such an example, the monitoring module maycreate additional cloud computing instances with local storage to expandthe pool of local storage that is offered by the cloud computinginstances. Alternatively, the monitoring module may create one or morenew cloud computing instances that have larger amounts of local storagethan the already existing cloud computing instances, such that datastored in an already existing cloud computing instance can be migratedto the one or more new cloud computing instances and the alreadyexisting cloud computing instance can be terminated, thereby expandingthe pool of local storage that is offered by the cloud computinginstances. Likewise, if the pool of local storage that is offered by thecloud computing instances is unnecessarily large, data can beconsolidated and some cloud computing instances can be terminated.

Readers will appreciate that the cloud-based storage system may be sizedup and down automatically by a monitoring module applying apredetermined set of rules that may be relatively simple of relativelycomplicated. In fact, the monitoring module may not only take intoaccount the current state of the cloud-based storage system, but themonitoring module may also apply predictive policies that are based on,for example, observed behavior (e.g., every night from 10 PM until 6 AMusage of the storage system is relatively light), predeterminedfingerprints (e.g., every time a virtual desktop infrastructure adds 100virtual desktops, the number of IOPS directed to the storage systemincrease by X), and so on. In such an example, the dynamic scaling ofthe cloud-based storage system may be based on current performancemetrics, predicted workloads, and many other factors, includingcombinations thereof.

Readers will further appreciate that because the cloud-based storagesystem may be dynamically scaled, the cloud-based storage system mayeven operate in a way that is more dynamic. Consider the example ofgarbage collection. In a traditional storage system, the amount ofstorage is fixed. As such, at some point the storage system may beforced to perform garbage collection as the amount of available storagehas become so constrained that the storage system is on the verge ofrunning out of storage. In contrast, the cloud-based storage systemdescribed here can always ‘add’ additional storage (e.g., by adding morecloud computing instances with local storage). Because the cloud-basedstorage system described here can always ‘add’ additional storage, thecloud-based storage system can make more intelligent decisions regardingwhen to perform garbage collection. For example, the cloud-based storagesystem may implement a policy that garbage collection only be performedwhen the number of TOPS being serviced by the cloud-based storage systemfalls below a certain level. In some embodiments, other system-levelfunctions (e.g., deduplication, compression) may also be turned off andon in response to system load, given that the size of the cloud-basedstorage system is not constrained in the same way that traditionalstorage systems are constrained.

Readers will appreciate that embodiments of the present disclosureresolve an issue with block-storage services offered by some cloudcomputing environments as some cloud computing environments only allowfor one cloud computing instance to connect to a block-storage volume ata single time. For example, in Amazon AWS, only a single EC2 instancemay be connected to an EBS volume. Through the use of EC2 instances withlocal storage, embodiments of the present disclosure can offermulti-connect capabilities where multiple EC2 instances can connect toanother EC2 instance with local storage (‘a drive instance’). In suchembodiments, the drive instances may include software executing withinthe drive instance that allows the drive instance to support I/Odirected to a particular volume from each connected EC2 instance. Assuch, some embodiments of the present disclosure may be embodied asmulti-connect block storage services.

In some embodiments, especially in embodiments where the cloud-basedobject storage resources are embodied as Amazon S3, the cloud-basedstorage system may include one or more modules (e.g., a module ofcomputer program instructions executing on an EC2 instance) that areconfigured to ensure that when the local storage of a particular cloudcomputing instance is rehydrated with data from S3, the appropriate datais actually in S3. This issue arises largely because S3 implements aneventual consistency model where, when overwriting an existing object,reads of the object will eventually (but not necessarily immediately)become consistent and will eventually (but not necessarily immediately)return the overwritten version of the object. To address this issue, insome embodiments of the present disclosure, objects in S3 are neveroverwritten. Instead, a traditional ‘overwrite’ would result in thecreation of the new object (that includes the updated version of thedata) and the eventual deletion of the old object (that includes theprevious version of the data).

In some embodiments of the present disclosure, as part of an attempt tonever (or almost never) overwrite an object, when data is written to S3the resultant object may be tagged with a sequence number. In someembodiments, these sequence numbers may be persisted elsewhere (e.g., ina database) such that at any point in time, the sequence numberassociated with the most up-to-date version of some piece of data can beknown. In such a way, a determination can be made as to whether S3 hasthe most recent version of some piece of data by merely reading thesequence number associated with an object—and without actually readingthe data from S3. The ability to make this determination may beparticularly important when a cloud computing instance with localstorage crashes, as it would be undesirable to rehydrate the localstorage of a replacement cloud computing instance with out-of-date data.In fact, because the cloud-based storage system does not need to accessthe data to verify its validity, the data can stay encrypted and accesscharges can be avoided.

The storage systems described above may carry out intelligent databackup techniques through which data stored in the storage system may becopied and stored in a distinct location to avoid data loss in the eventof equipment failure or some other form of catastrophe. For example, thestorage systems described above may be configured to examine each backupto avoid restoring the storage system to an undesirable state. Consideran example in which malware infects the storage system. In such anexample, the storage system may include software resources 314 that canscan each backup to identify backups that were captured before themalware infected the storage system and those backups that were capturedafter the malware infected the storage system. In such an example, thestorage system may restore itself from a backup that does not includethe malware—or at least not restore the portions of a backup thatcontained the malware. In such an example, the storage system mayinclude software resources 314 that can scan each backup to identify thepresences of malware (or a virus, or some other undesirable), forexample, by identifying write operations that were serviced by thestorage system and originated from a network subnet that is suspected tohave delivered the malware, by identifying write operations that wereserviced by the storage system and originated from a user that issuspected to have delivered the malware, by identifying write operationsthat were serviced by the storage system and examining the content ofthe write operation against fingerprints of the malware, and in manyother ways.

Readers will further appreciate that the backups (often in the form ofone or more snapshots) may also be utilized to perform rapid recovery ofthe storage system. Consider an example in which the storage system isinfected with ransomware that locks users out of the storage system. Insuch an example, software resources 314 within the storage system may beconfigured to detect the presence of ransomware and may be furtherconfigured to restore the storage system to a point-in-time, using theretained backups, prior to the point-in-time at which the ransomwareinfected the storage system. In such an example, the presence ofransomware may be explicitly detected through the use of software toolsutilized by the system, through the use of a key (e.g., a USB drive)that is inserted into the storage system, or in a similar way. Likewise,the presence of ransomware may be inferred in response to systemactivity meeting a predetermined fingerprint such as, for example, noreads or writes coming into the system for a predetermined period oftime.

Readers will appreciate that the various components described above maybe grouped into one or more optimized computing packages as convergedinfrastructures. Such converged infrastructures may include pools ofcomputers, storage and networking resources that can be shared bymultiple applications and managed in a collective manner usingpolicy-driven processes. Such converged infrastructures may beimplemented with a converged infrastructure reference architecture, withstandalone appliances, with a software driven hyper-converged approach(e.g., hyper-converged infrastructures), or in other ways.

Readers will appreciate that the storage systems described above may beuseful for supporting various types of software applications. Forexample, the storage system 306 may be useful in supporting artificialintelligence (‘AI’) applications, database applications, DevOpsprojects, electronic design automation tools, event-driven softwareapplications, high performance computing applications, simulationapplications, high-speed data capture and analysis applications, machinelearning applications, media production applications, media servingapplications, picture archiving and communication systems (‘PACS’)applications, software development applications, virtual realityapplications, augmented reality applications, and many other types ofapplications by providing storage resources to such applications.

The storage systems described above may operate to support a widevariety of applications. In view of the fact that the storage systemsinclude compute resources, storage resources, and a wide variety ofother resources, the storage systems may be well suited to supportapplications that are resource intensive such as, for example, AIapplications. AI applications may be deployed in a variety of fields,including: predictive maintenance in manufacturing and related fields,healthcare applications such as patient data & risk analytics, retailand marketing deployments (e.g., search advertising, social mediaadvertising), supply chains solutions, fintech solutions such asbusiness analytics & reporting tools, operational deployments such asreal-time analytics tools, application performance management tools, ITinfrastructure management tools, and many others.

Such AI applications may enable devices to perceive their environmentand take actions that maximize their chance of success at some goal.Examples of such AI applications can include IBM Watson, MicrosoftOxford, Google DeepMind, Baidu Minwa, and others. The storage systemsdescribed above may also be well suited to support other types ofapplications that are resource intensive such as, for example, machinelearning applications. Machine learning applications may perform varioustypes of data analysis to automate analytical model building. Usingalgorithms that iteratively learn from data, machine learningapplications can enable computers to learn without being explicitlyprogrammed. One particular area of machine learning is referred to asreinforcement learning, which involves taking suitable actions tomaximize reward in a particular situation. Reinforcement learning may beemployed to find the best possible behavior or path that a particularsoftware application or machine should take in a specific situation.Reinforcement learning differs from other areas of machine learning(e.g., supervised learning, unsupervised learning) in that correctinput/output pairs need not be presented for reinforcement learning andsub-optimal actions need not be explicitly corrected.

In addition to the resources already described, the storage systemsdescribed above may also include graphics processing units (‘GPUs’),occasionally referred to as visual processing unit (‘VPUs’). Such GPUsmay be embodied as specialized electronic circuits that rapidlymanipulate and alter memory to accelerate the creation of images in aframe buffer intended for output to a display device. Such GPUs may beincluded within any of the computing devices that are part of thestorage systems described above, including as one of many individuallyscalable components of a storage system, where other examples ofindividually scalable components of such storage system can includestorage components, memory components, compute components (e.g., CPUs,FPGAs, ASICs), networking components, software components, and others.In addition to GPUs, the storage systems described above may alsoinclude neural network processors (‘NNPs’) for use in various aspects ofneural network processing. Such NNPs may be used in place of (or inaddition to) GPUs and may be also be independently scalable.

As described above, the storage systems described herein may beconfigured to support artificial intelligence applications, machinelearning applications, big data analytics applications, and many othertypes of applications. The rapid growth in these sort of applications isbeing driven by three technologies: deep learning (DL), GPU processors,and Big Data. Deep learning is a computing model that makes use ofmassively parallel neural networks inspired by the human brain. Insteadof experts handcrafting software, a deep learning model writes its ownsoftware by learning from lots of examples. Such GPUs may includethousands of cores that are well-suited to run algorithms that looselyrepresent the parallel nature of the human brain.

Advances in deep neural networks, including the development ofmulti-layer neural networks, have ignited a new wave of algorithms andtools for data scientists to tap into their data with artificialintelligence (AI). With improved algorithms, larger data sets, andvarious frameworks (including open-source software libraries for machinelearning across a range of tasks), data scientists are tackling new usecases like autonomous driving vehicles, natural language processing andunderstanding, computer vision, machine reasoning, strong AI, and manyothers. Applications of such techniques may include: machine andvehicular object detection, identification and avoidance; visualrecognition, classification and tagging; algorithmic financial tradingstrategy performance management; simultaneous localization and mapping;predictive maintenance of high-value machinery; prevention against cybersecurity threats, expertise automation; image recognition andclassification; question answering; robotics; text analytics(extraction, classification) and text generation and translation; andmany others. Applications of AI techniques has materialized in a widearray of products include, for example, Amazon Echo's speech recognitiontechnology that allows users to talk to their machines, GoogleTranslate™ which allows for machine-based language translation,Spotify's Discover Weekly that provides recommendations on new songs andartists that a user may like based on the user's usage and trafficanalysis, Quill's text generation offering that takes structured dataand turns it into narrative stories, Chatbots that provide real-time,contextually specific answers to questions in a dialog format, and manyothers.

Data is the heart of modern AI and deep learning algorithms. Beforetraining can begin, one problem that must be addressed revolves aroundcollecting the labeled data that is crucial for training an accurate AImodel. A full scale AI deployment may be required to continuouslycollect, clean, transform, label, and store large amounts of data.Adding additional high quality data points directly translates to moreaccurate models and better insights. Data samples may undergo a seriesof processing steps including, but not limited to: 1) ingesting the datafrom an external source into the training system and storing the data inraw form, 2) cleaning and transforming the data in a format convenientfor training, including linking data samples to the appropriate label,3) exploring parameters and models, quickly testing with a smallerdataset, and iterating to converge on the most promising models to pushinto the production cluster, 4) executing training phases to selectrandom batches of input data, including both new and older samples, andfeeding those into production GPU servers for computation to updatemodel parameters, and 5) evaluating including using a holdback portionof the data not used in training in order to evaluate model accuracy onthe holdout data. This lifecycle may apply for any type of parallelizedmachine learning, not just neural networks or deep learning. Forexample, standard machine learning frameworks may rely on CPUs insteadof GPUs but the data ingest and training workflows may be the same.Readers will appreciate that a single shared storage data hub creates acoordination point throughout the lifecycle without the need for extradata copies among the ingest, preprocessing, and training stages. Rarelyis the ingested data used for only one purpose, and shared storage givesthe flexibility to train multiple different models or apply traditionalanalytics to the data.

Readers will appreciate that each stage in the AI data pipeline may havevarying requirements from the data hub (e.g., the storage system orcollection of storage systems). Scale-out storage systems must deliveruncompromising performance for all manner of access types andpatterns—from small, metadata-heavy to large files, from random tosequential access patterns, and from low to high concurrency. Thestorage systems described above may serve as an ideal AI data hub as thesystems may service unstructured workloads. In the first stage, data isideally ingested and stored on to the same data hub that followingstages will use, in order to avoid excess data copying. The next twosteps can be done on a standard compute server that optionally includesa GPU, and then in the fourth and last stage, full training productionjobs are run on powerful GPU-accelerated servers. Often, there is aproduction pipeline alongside an experimental pipeline operating on thesame dataset. Further, the GPU-accelerated servers can be usedindependently for different models or joined together to train on onelarger model, even spanning multiple systems for distributed training.If the shared storage tier is slow, then data must be copied to localstorage for each phase, resulting in wasted time staging data ontodifferent servers. The ideal data hub for the AI training pipelinedelivers performance similar to data stored locally on the server nodewhile also having the simplicity and performance to enable all pipelinestages to operate concurrently.

In order for the storage systems described above to serve as a data hubor as part of an AI deployment, in some embodiments the storage systemsmay be configured to provide DMA between storage devices that areincluded in the storage systems and one or more GPUs that are used in anAI or big data analytics pipeline. The one or more GPUs may be coupledto the storage system, for example, via NVMe-over-Fabrics (‘NVMe-oF’)such that bottlenecks such as the host CPU can be bypassed and thestorage system (or one of the components contained therein) can directlyaccess GPU memory. In such an example, the storage systems may leverageAPI hooks to the GPUs to transfer data directly to the GPUs. Forexample, the GPUs may be embodied as Nvidia™ GPUs and the storagesystems may support GPUDirect Storage (‘GDS’) software, or have similarproprietary software, that enables the storage system to transfer datato the GPUs via RDMA or similar mechanism. Readers will appreciate thatin embodiments where the storage systems are embodied as cloud-basedstorage systems as described below, virtual drive or other componentswithin such a cloud-based storage system may also be configured

Although the preceding paragraphs discuss deep learning applications,readers will appreciate that the storage systems described herein mayalso be part of a distributed deep learning (‘DDL’) platform to supportthe execution of DDL algorithms. The storage systems described above mayalso be paired with other technologies such as TensorFlow, anopen-source software library for dataflow programming across a range oftasks that may be used for machine learning applications such as neuralnetworks, to facilitate the development of such machine learning models,applications, and so on.

The storage systems described above may also be used in a neuromorphiccomputing environment. Neuromorphic computing is a form of computingthat mimics brain cells. To support neuromorphic computing, anarchitecture of interconnected “neurons” replace traditional computingmodels with low-powered signals that go directly between neurons formore efficient computation. Neuromorphic computing may make use ofvery-large-scale integration (VLSI) systems containing electronic analogcircuits to mimic neuro-biological architectures present in the nervoussystem, as well as analog, digital, mixed-mode analog/digital VLSI, andsoftware systems that implement models of neural systems for perception,motor control, or multisensory integration.

Readers will appreciate that the storage systems described above may beconfigured to support the storage or use of (among other types of data)blockchains. In addition to supporting the storage and use of blockchaintechnologies, the storage systems described above may also support thestorage and use of derivative items such as, for example, open sourceblockchains and related tools that are part of the IBM™ Hyperledgerproject, permissioned blockchains in which a certain number of trustedparties are allowed to access the block chain, blockchain products thatenable developers to build their own distributed ledger projects, andothers. Blockchains and the storage systems described herein may beleveraged to support on-chain storage of data as well as off-chainstorage of data.

Off-chain storage of data can be implemented in a variety of ways andcan occur when the data itself is not stored within the blockchain. Forexample, in one embodiment, a hash function may be utilized and the dataitself may be fed into the hash function to generate a hash value. Insuch an example, the hashes of large pieces of data may be embeddedwithin transactions, instead of the data itself. Readers will appreciatethat, in other embodiments, alternatives to blockchains may be used tofacilitate the decentralized storage of information. For example, onealternative to a blockchain that may be used is a blockweave. Whileconventional blockchains store every transaction to achieve validation,a blockweave permits secure decentralization without the usage of theentire chain, thereby enabling low cost on-chain storage of data. Suchblockweaves may utilize a consensus mechanism that is based on proof ofaccess (PoA) and proof of work (PoW).

The storage systems described above may, either alone or in combinationwith other computing devices, be used to support in-memory computingapplications. In-memory computing involves the storage of information inRAM that is distributed across a cluster of computers. Readers willappreciate that the storage systems described above, especially thosethat are configurable with customizable amounts of processing resources,storage resources, and memory resources (e.g., those systems in whichblades that contain configurable amounts of each type of resource), maybe configured in a way so as to provide an infrastructure that cansupport in-memory computing. Likewise, the storage systems describedabove may include component parts (e.g., NVDIMMs, 3D crosspoint storagethat provide fast random access memory that is persistent) that canactually provide for an improved in-memory computing environment ascompared to in-memory computing environments that rely on RAMdistributed across dedicated servers.

In some embodiments, the storage systems described above may beconfigured to operate as a hybrid in-memory computing environment thatincludes a universal interface to all storage media (e.g., RAM, flashstorage, 3D crosspoint storage). In such embodiments, users may have noknowledge regarding the details of where their data is stored but theycan still use the same full, unified API to address data. In suchembodiments, the storage system may (in the background) move data to thefastest layer available—including intelligently placing the data independence upon various characteristics of the data or in dependenceupon some other heuristic. In such an example, the storage systems mayeven make use of existing products such as Apache Ignite and GridGain tomove data between the various storage layers, or the storage systems maymake use of custom software to move data between the various storagelayers. The storage systems described herein may implement variousoptimizations to improve the performance of in-memory computing such as,for example, having computations occur as close to the data as possible.

Readers will further appreciate that in some embodiments, the storagesystems described above may be paired with other resources to supportthe applications described above. For example, one infrastructure couldinclude primary compute in the form of servers and workstations whichspecialize in using General-purpose computing on graphics processingunits (‘GPGPU’) to accelerate deep learning applications that areinterconnected into a computation engine to train parameters for deepneural networks. Each system may have Ethernet external connectivity,InfiniBand external connectivity, some other form of externalconnectivity, or some combination thereof. In such an example, the GPUscan be grouped for a single large training or used independently totrain multiple models. The infrastructure could also include a storagesystem such as those described above to provide, for example, ascale-out all-flash file or object store through which data can beaccessed via high-performance protocols such as NFS, S3, and so on. Theinfrastructure can also include, for example, redundant top-of-rackEthernet switches connected to storage and compute via ports in MLAGport channels for redundancy. The infrastructure could also includeadditional compute in the form of whitebox servers, optionally withGPUs, for data ingestion, pre-processing, and model debugging. Readerswill appreciate that additional infrastructures are also be possible.

Readers will appreciate that the storage systems described above, eitheralone or in coordination with other computing machinery may beconfigured to support other AI related tools. For example, the storagesystems may make use of tools like ONXX or other open neural networkexchange formats that make it easier to transfer models written indifferent AI frameworks. Likewise, the storage systems may be configuredto support tools like Amazon's Gluon that allow developers to prototype,build, and train deep learning models. In fact, the storage systemsdescribed above may be part of a larger platform, such as IBM™ CloudPrivate for Data, that includes integrated data science, dataengineering and application building services.

Readers will further appreciate that the storage systems described abovemay also be deployed as an edge solution. Such an edge solution may bein place to optimize cloud computing systems by performing dataprocessing at the edge of the network, near the source of the data. Edgecomputing can push applications, data and computing power (i.e.,services) away from centralized points to the logical extremes of anetwork. Through the use of edge solutions such as the storage systemsdescribed above, computational tasks may be performed using the computeresources provided by such storage systems, data may be storage usingthe storage resources of the storage system, and cloud-based servicesmay be accessed through the use of various resources of the storagesystem (including networking resources). By performing computationaltasks on the edge solution, storing data on the edge solution, andgenerally making use of the edge solution, the consumption of expensivecloud-based resources may be avoided and, in fact, performanceimprovements may be experienced relative to a heavier reliance oncloud-based resources.

While many tasks may benefit from the utilization of an edge solution,some particular uses may be especially suited for deployment in such anenvironment. For example, devices like drones, autonomous cars, robots,and others may require extremely rapid processing—so fast, in fact, thatsending data up to a cloud environment and back to receive dataprocessing support may simply be too slow. As an additional example,some IoT devices such as connected video cameras may not be well-suitedfor the utilization of cloud-based resources as it may be impractical(not only from a privacy perspective, security perspective, or afinancial perspective) to send the data to the cloud simply because ofthe pure volume of data that is involved. As such, many tasks thatreally on data processing, storage, or communications may be bettersuited by platforms that include edge solutions such as the storagesystems described above.

The storage systems described above may alone, or in combination withother computing resources, serves as a network edge platform thatcombines compute resources, storage resources, networking resources,cloud technologies and network virtualization technologies, and so on.As part of the network, the edge may take on characteristics similar toother network facilities, from the customer premise and backhaulaggregation facilities to Points of Presence (PoPs) and regional datacenters. Readers will appreciate that network workloads, such as VirtualNetwork Functions (VNFs) and others, will reside on the network edgeplatform. Enabled by a combination of containers and virtual machines,the network edge platform may rely on controllers and schedulers thatare no longer geographically co-located with the data processingresources. The functions, as microservices, may split into controlplanes, user and data planes, or even state machines, allowing forindependent optimization and scaling techniques to be applied. Such userand data planes may be enabled through increased accelerators, boththose residing in server platforms, such as FPGAs and Smart NICs, andthrough SDN-enabled merchant silicon and programmable ASICs.

The storage systems described above may also be optimized for use in bigdata analytics. Big data analytics may be generally described as theprocess of examining large and varied data sets to uncover hiddenpatterns, unknown correlations, market trends, customer preferences andother useful information that can help organizations make more-informedbusiness decisions. As part of that process, semi-structured andunstructured data such as, for example, internet clickstream data, webserver logs, social media content, text from customer emails and surveyresponses, mobile-phone call-detail records, IoT sensor data, and otherdata may be converted to a structured form.

The storage systems described above may also support (includingimplementing as a system interface) applications that perform tasks inresponse to human speech. For example, the storage systems may supportthe execution intelligent personal assistant applications such as, forexample, Amazon's Alexa, Apple Siri, Google Voice, Samsung Bixby,Microsoft Cortana, and others. While the examples described in theprevious sentence make use of voice as input, the storage systemsdescribed above may also support chatbots, talkbots, chatterbots, orartificial conversational entities or other applications that areconfigured to conduct a conversation via auditory or textual methods.Likewise, the storage system may actually execute such an application toenable a user such as a system administrator to interact with thestorage system via speech. Such applications are generally capable ofvoice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms,streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic,and other real time information, such as news, although in embodimentsin accordance with the present disclosure, such applications may beutilized as interfaces to various system management operations.

The storage systems described above may also implement AI platforms fordelivering on the vision of self-driving storage. Such AI platforms maybe configured to deliver global predictive intelligence by collectingand analyzing large amounts of storage system telemetry data points toenable effortless management, analytics and support. In fact, suchstorage systems may be capable of predicting both capacity andperformance, as well as generating intelligent advice on workloaddeployment, interaction and optimization. Such AI platforms may beconfigured to scan all incoming storage system telemetry data against alibrary of issue fingerprints to predict and resolve incidents inreal-time, before they impact customer environments, and captureshundreds of variables related to performance that are used to forecastperformance load.

The storage systems described above may support the serialized orsimultaneous execution of artificial intelligence applications, machinelearning applications, data analytics applications, datatransformations, and other tasks that collectively may form an AIladder. Such an AI ladder may effectively be formed by combining suchelements to form a complete data science pipeline, where existdependencies between elements of the AI ladder. For example, AI mayrequire that some form of machine learning has taken place, machinelearning may require that some form of analytics has taken place,analytics may require that some form of data and informationarchitecting has taken place, and so on. As such, each element may beviewed as a rung in an AI ladder that collectively can form a completeand sophisticated AI solution.

The storage systems described above may also, either alone or incombination with other computing environments, be used to deliver an AIeverywhere experience where AI permeates wide and expansive aspects ofbusiness and life. For example, AI may play an important role in thedelivery of deep learning solutions, deep reinforcement learningsolutions, artificial general intelligence solutions, autonomousvehicles, cognitive computing solutions, commercial UAVs or drones,conversational user interfaces, enterprise taxonomies, ontologymanagement solutions, machine learning solutions, smart dust, smartrobots, smart workplaces, and many others.

The storage systems described above may also, either alone or incombination with other computing environments, be used to deliver a widerange of transparently immersive experiences (including those that usedigital twins of various “things” such as people, places, processes,systems, and so on) where technology can introduce transparency betweenpeople, businesses, and things. Such transparently immersive experiencesmay be delivered as augmented reality technologies, connected homes,virtual reality technologies, brain-computer interfaces, humanaugmentation technologies, nanotube electronics, volumetric displays, 4Dprinting technologies, or others.

The storage systems described above may also, either alone or incombination with other computing environments, be used to support a widevariety of digital platforms. Such digital platforms can include, forexample, 5G wireless systems and platforms, digital twin platforms, edgecomputing platforms, IoT platforms, quantum computing platforms,serverless PaaS, software-defined security, neuromorphic computingplatforms, and so on.

The storage systems described above may also be part of a multi-cloudenvironment in which multiple cloud computing and storage services aredeployed in a single heterogeneous architecture. In order to facilitatethe operation of such a multi-cloud environment, DevOps tools may bedeployed to enable orchestration across clouds. Likewise, continuousdevelopment and continuous integration tools may be deployed tostandardize processes around continuous integration and delivery, newfeature rollout and provisioning cloud workloads. By standardizing theseprocesses, a multi-cloud strategy may be implemented that enables theutilization of the best provider for each workload.

The storage systems described above may be used as a part of a platformto enable the use of crypto-anchors that may be used to authenticate aproduct's origins and contents to ensure that it matches a blockchainrecord associated with the product. Similarly, as part of a suite oftools to secure data stored on the storage system, the storage systemsdescribed above may implement various encryption technologies andschemes, including lattice cryptography. Lattice cryptography caninvolve constructions of cryptographic primitives that involve lattices,either in the construction itself or in the security proof. Unlikepublic-key schemes such as the RSA, Diffie-Hellman or Elliptic-Curvecryptosystems, which are easily attacked by a quantum computer, somelattice-based constructions appear to be resistant to attack by bothclassical and quantum computers.

A quantum computer is a device that performs quantum computing. Quantumcomputing is computing using quantum-mechanical phenomena, such assuperposition and entanglement. Quantum computers differ fromtraditional computers that are based on transistors, as such traditionalcomputers require that data be encoded into binary digits (bits), eachof which is always in one of two definite states (0 or 1). In contrastto traditional computers, quantum computers use quantum bits, which canbe in superpositions of states. A quantum computer maintains a sequenceof qubits, where a single qubit can represent a one, a zero, or anyquantum superposition of those two qubit states. A pair of qubits can bein any quantum superposition of 4 states, and three qubits in anysuperposition of 8 states. A quantum computer with n qubits cangenerally be in an arbitrary superposition of up to 2{circumflex over( )}n different states simultaneously, whereas a traditional computercan only be in one of these states at any one time. A quantum Turingmachine is a theoretical model of such a computer.

The storage systems described above may also be paired withFPGA-accelerated servers as part of a larger AI or ML infrastructure.Such FPGA-accelerated servers may reside near (e.g., in the same datacenter) the storage systems described above or even incorporated into anappliance that includes one or more storage systems, one or moreFPGA-accelerated servers, networking infrastructure that supportscommunications between the one or more storage systems and the one ormore FPGA-accelerated servers, as well as other hardware and softwarecomponents. Alternatively, FPGA-accelerated servers may reside within acloud computing environment that may be used to perform compute-relatedtasks for AI and ML jobs. Any of the embodiments described above may beused to collectively serve as a FPGA-based AI or ML platform. Readerswill appreciate that, in some embodiments of the FPGA-based AI or MLplatform, the FPGAs that are contained within the FPGA-acceleratedservers may be reconfigured for different types of ML models (e.g.,LSTMs, CNNs, GRUs). The ability to reconfigure the FPGAs that arecontained within the FPGA-accelerated servers may enable theacceleration of a ML or AI application based on the most optimalnumerical precision and memory model being used. Readers will appreciatethat by treating the collection of FPGA-accelerated servers as a pool ofFPGAs, any CPU in the data center may utilize the pool of FPGAs as ashared hardware microservice, rather than limiting a server to dedicatedaccelerators plugged into it.

The FPGA-accelerated servers and the GPU-accelerated servers describedabove may implement a model of computing where, rather than keeping asmall amount of data in a CPU and running a long stream of instructionsover it as occurred in more traditional computing models, the machinelearning model and parameters are pinned into the high-bandwidth on-chipmemory with lots of data streaming though the high-bandwidth on-chipmemory. FPGAs may even be more efficient than GPUs for this computingmodel, as the FPGAs can be programmed with only the instructions neededto run this kind of computing model.

The storage systems described above may be configured to provideparallel storage, for example, through the use of a parallel file systemsuch as BeeGFS. Such parallel files systems may include a distributedmetadata architecture. For example, the parallel file system may includea plurality of metadata servers across which metadata is distributed, aswell as components that include services for clients and storageservers.

The systems described above can support the execution of a wide array ofsoftware applications. Such software applications can be deployed in avariety of ways, including container-based deployment models.Containerized applications may be managed using a variety of tools. Forexample, containerized applications may be managed using Docker Swarm,Kubernetes, and others. Containerized applications may be used tofacilitate a serverless, cloud native computing deployment andmanagement model for software applications. In support of a serverless,cloud native computing deployment and management model for softwareapplications, containers may be used as part of an event handlingmechanisms (e.g., AWS Lambdas) such that various events cause acontainerized application to be spun up to operate as an event handler.

The systems described above may be deployed in a variety of ways,including being deployed in ways that support fifth generation (‘5G’)networks. 5G networks may support substantially faster datacommunications than previous generations of mobile communicationsnetworks and, as a consequence may lead to the disaggregation of dataand computing resources as modern massive data centers may become lessprominent and may be replaced, for example, by more-local, micro datacenters that are close to the mobile-network towers. The systemsdescribed above may be included in such local, micro data centers andmay be part of or paired to multi-access edge computing (‘MEC’) systems.Such MEC systems may enable cloud computing capabilities and an ITservice environment at the edge of the cellular network. By runningapplications and performing related processing tasks closer to thecellular customer, network congestion may be reduced and applicationsmay perform better.

The storage systems described above may also be configured to implementNVMe Zoned Namespaces. Through the use of NVMe Zoned Namespaces, thelogical address space of a namespace is divided into zones. Each zoneprovides a logical block address range that must be written sequentiallyand explicitly reset before rewriting, thereby enabling the creation ofnamespaces that expose the natural boundaries of the device and offloadmanagement of internal mapping tables to the host. In order to implementNVMe Zoned Name Spaces (‘ZNS’), ZNS SSDs or some other form of zonedblock devices may be utilized that expose a namespace logical addressspace using zones. With the zones aligned to the internal physicalproperties of the device, several inefficiencies in the placement ofdata can be eliminated. In such embodiments, each zone may be mapped,for example, to a separate application such that functions like wearlevelling and garbage collection could be performed on a per-zone orper-application basis rather than across the entire device. In order tosupport ZNS, the storage controllers described herein may be configuredwith to interact with zoned block devices through the usage of, forexample, the Linux™ kernel zoned block device interface or other tools.

The storage systems described above may also be configured to implementzoned storage in other ways such as, for example, through the usage ofshingled magnetic recording (SMR) storage devices. In examples wherezoned storage is used, device-managed embodiments may be deployed wherethe storage devices hide this complexity by managing it in the firmware,presenting an interface like any other storage device. Alternatively,zoned storage may be implemented via a host-managed embodiment thatdepends on the operating system to know how to handle the drive, andonly write sequentially to certain regions of the drive. Zoned storagemay similarly be implemented using a host-aware embodiment in which acombination of a drive managed and host managed implementation isdeployed.

The embodiments may be integrated with a computing device that may bespecifically configured to perform one or more of the processesdescribed herein. The computing device may include a communicationinterface, a processor, a storage device, and an input/output (“I/O”)module communicatively connected one to another via a communicationinfrastructure

A Communication interface may be configured to communicate with one ormore computing devices. Examples of communication interface include,without limitation, a wired network interface (such as a networkinterface card), a wireless network interface (such as a wirelessnetwork interface card), a modem, an audio/video connection, and anyother suitable interface.

A Processor generally represents any type or form of processing unitcapable of processing data and/or interpreting, executing, and/ordirecting execution of one or more of the instructions, processes,and/or operations described herein. Processor may perform operations byexecuting computer-executable instructions (e.g., an application,software, code, and/or other executable data instance) stored in storagedevice.

A Storage device may include one or more data storage media, devices, orconfigurations and may employ any type, form, and combination of datastorage media and/or device. For example, the storage device mayinclude, but is not limited to, any combination of the non-volatilemedia and/or volatile media described herein. Electronic data, includingdata described herein, may be temporarily and/or permanently stored instorage device. For example, data representative of computer-executableinstructions configured to direct processor to perform any of theoperations described herein may be stored within storage device. In someexamples, data may be arranged in one or more databases residing withinstorage device.

An I/O module may include one or more I/O modules configured to receiveuser input and provide user output. The I/O module may include anyhardware, firmware, software, or combination thereof supportive of inputand output capabilities. For example, I/O module may include hardwareand/or software for capturing user input, including, but not limited to,a keyboard or keypad, a touchscreen component (e.g., touchscreendisplay), a receiver (e.g., an RF or infrared receiver), motion sensors,and/or one or more input buttons.

An I/O module may include one or more devices for presenting output to auser, including, but not limited to, a graphics engine, a display (e.g.,a display screen), one or more output drivers (e.g., display drivers),one or more audio speakers, and one or more audio drivers. In certainembodiments, I/O module is configured to provide graphical data to adisplay for presentation to a user. The graphical data may berepresentative of one or more graphical user interfaces and/or any othergraphical content as may serve a particular implementation. In someexamples, any of the systems, computing devices, and/or other componentsdescribed herein may be implemented by computing device.

The storage systems described above may, either alone or in combination,by configured to serve as a continuous data protection store. Acontinuous data protection store is a feature of a storage system thatrecords updates to a dataset in such a way that consistent images ofprior contents of the dataset can be accessed with a low timegranularity (often on the order of seconds, or even less), andstretching back for a reasonable period of time (often hours or days).These allow access to very recent consistent points in time for thedataset, and also allow access to access to points in time for a datasetthat might have just preceded some event that, for example, caused partsof the dataset to be corrupted or otherwise lost, while retaining closeto the maximum number of updates that preceded that event. Conceptually,they are like a sequence of snapshots of a dataset taken very frequentlyand kept for a long period of time, though continuous data protectionstores are often implemented quite differently from snapshots. A storagesystem implementing a data continuous data protection store may furtherprovide a means of accessing these points in time, accessing one or moreof these points in time as snapshots or as cloned copies, or revertingthe dataset back to one of those recorded points in time.

Over time, to reduce overhead, some points in the time held in acontinuous data protection store can be merged with other nearby pointsin time, essentially deleting some of these points in time from thestore. This can reduce the capacity needed to store updates. It may alsobe possible to convert a limited number of these points in time intolonger duration snapshots. For example, such a store might keep a lowgranularity sequence of points in time stretching back a few hours fromthe present, with some points in time merged or deleted to reduceoverhead for up to an additional day. Stretching back in the pastfurther than that, some of these points in time could be converted tosnapshots representing consistent point-in-time images from only everyfew hours.

The present disclosure relates to independent scaling of computeresources and storage resources in a storage system. Storage systemsdescribed herein may include a plurality of blades. Each of the bladesin the storage system may be embodied, for example, as a computingdevice that includes one or more computer processors, dynamic randomaccess memory (‘DRAM’), flash memory, interfaces for one morecommunication busses, interfaces for one or more power distributionbusses, cooling components, one or more chassis, a switch, and so on.Although the blades will be described in more detail below, readers willappreciate that the blades may be embodied as different types of blades,such that the collective set of blades include heterogeneous members.

Each of the blades in the storage system may be mounted within one of aplurality of chassis. Each chassis may be embodied, for example, asphysical structure that helps protect and organize components within thestorage system. Each chassis may include a plurality of slots, whereeach slot is configured to receive a blade. Each chassis may alsoinclude one or more mechanisms such as a power distribution bus that isutilized to provide power to each blade that is mounted within thechassis, one or more data communication mechanisms such as a datacommunication bus that enables communication between each blade that ismounted within the chassis, one or more data communication mechanismssuch as a data communication bus that enables communication between eachblade that is mounted within and an external data communicationsnetwork, and so on. In fact, each chassis may include at least twoinstances of both the power distribution mechanism and the communicationmechanisms, where each instance of the power distribution mechanism andeach instance of the communication mechanisms may be enabled or disabledindependently.

As mentioned above, the present disclosure relates to independentscaling of compute resources and storage resources. Compute resourcesmay be scaled independently of storage resources, for example, byaltering the amount of compute resources that are provided by thestorage system without changing the amount of storage resources that areprovided by the storage system or by changing the amount of storageresources that are provided by the storage system without changing theamount of compute resources that are provided by the storage system.Compute resources and storage resources may be independently scaled, forexample, by adding blades that only include storage resources, by addingblades that only include compute resources, by enabling computeresources on a blade to be powered up or powered down with no impact tothe storage resources in the storage system, by enabling storageresources on a blade to be powered up or powered down with no impact tothe compute resources in the storage system, and so on. As such,embodiments of the present disclosure will be described that includehardware support for independent scaling of compute resources andstorage resources, software support for independent scaling of computeresources and storage resources, or any combination thereof.

Example apparatuses and storage systems that support independent scalingof compute resources and storage resources in accordance with thepresent disclosure are described with reference to the accompanyingdrawings, beginning with FIG. 4 . FIG. 4 sets forth a diagram of achassis (424) for use in a storage system that supports independentscaling of compute resources and storage resources. The chassis (424)depicted in FIG. 4 may be embodied, for example, as an enclosure thatmay be mounted within a larger enclosure (e.g., a rack) to form amulti-chassis storage system. The chassis (424) depicted in FIG. 4 mayinclude a plurality of slots (420) where each slot is configured toreceive a blade (422). Although not depicted in the example of FIG. 4 ,readers will appreciate that each slot may include various supportstructures such as rails, locking mechanisms, and other physicalcomponents for securing a blade (422) within a particular slot.Furthermore, in alternative embodiments, a single blade may spanmultiple slots.

The blade (422) depicted in FIG. 4 may be embodied, for example, as acomputing device that includes one or more computer processors, dynamicrandom access memory (‘DRAM’), flash memory, interfaces for one morecommunication busses, interfaces for one or more power distributionbusses, cooling components, and so on. Although blades will be describedin more detail below, readers will appreciate that the chassis (424) maybe configured to support different types of blades, such that thecollective set of blades may include heterogeneous members. Blades maybe of different types as some blades may only provide processingresources to the overall storage system, some blades may only providestorage resources to the overall storage system, and some blades mayprovide both processing resources and storage resources to the overallstorage system. Furthermore, even the blades that are identical in typemay be different in terms of the amount of storage resources that theblades provide to the overall storage system. For example, a first bladethat only provides storage resources to the overall storage system mayprovide 8 TB of storage while a second blade that only provides storageresources to the overall storage system may provide 256 TB of storage.The blades that are identical in type may also be different in terms ofthe amount of processing resources that the blades provide to theoverall storage system. For example, a first blade that only providesprocessing resources to the overall storage system may include moreprocessors or more powerful processors than a second blade that onlyprovides processing resources to the overall storage system. Readerswill appreciate that other differences may also exist between twoindividual blades and that blade uniformity is not required according toembodiments described herein.

The chassis (424) depicted in FIG. 4 may also include a compartment(416) that is used to house computing devices and computing componentsthat are utilized by the blades that are mounted within the chassis(424). The compartment (416) may include, for example, one or more powersupplies that are used to provide power to one or more blades mountedwithin the chassis (424), one or more power busses that are used todeliver power from one or more power supplies to one or more bladesmounted within the chassis (424), one or more network switches that areused to route data communications between blades mounted within thechassis (424), one or more network switches that are used to route datacommunications between blades mounted within the chassis (424) and adata communications network that is external to the chassis (424), oneor more data communications busses, and so on. Readers will appreciatethat additional computing devices and computing components may bemounted within the compartment (416) according to embodiments of thepresent disclosure.

The chassis (424) depicted in FIG. 4 may also include a connector panel(418) that is used to support various interfaces and connectors thatallow components within the blades that are mounted within the chassis(424) to couple to computing devices and computing components that arehoused in the compartment (416). The connector panel (418) may be usedto provide various interfaces and connectors to each blade (422), aseach slot may have a unique set of interfaces and connectors mounted onthe connector panel (418), such that a blade that is mounted within aparticular slot may couple to the unique set of interfaces andconnectors mounted on the connector panel (418) when the blade isinserted into the particular slot. In the example depicted in FIG. 4 ,four network interfaces (402, 404, 406, 408) are mounted on theconnector panel (418) for use by the blade (422) depicted in FIG. 4 whenthe blade (422) is inserted into a slot (426). The four networkinterfaces (402, 404, 406, 408) may be embodied, for example, as an RJ45connector that is coupled to an Ethernet cable and inserted into anEthernet port on the blade (422), as a 9-pin DE-9 cable connector thatis coupled to an optical fiber cable and inserted into a Fibre Channelport on the blade (422), as a cooper or optical Quad Small Form-factorPluggable (‘QSFP’) for Ethernet, InfiniBand, or other high speedsignaling interface, as other interfaces that enable an Ethernet adapterin the blade (422) to be coupled to a data communications network, asother interfaces that enable a Fibre Channel adapter in the blade (422)to be coupled to a data communications network, as other interfaces thatenable other types of host bus adapters in the blade (422) to be coupledto a data communications network, and so on. Readers will appreciatethat each of the four network interfaces (402, 404, 406, 408) may beused to couple the blade (422) to distinct data communications networks,two or more of the network interfaces (402, 404, 406, 408) may be usedto couple the blade (422) to the same data communications networks, oneor more of the network interfaces (402, 404, 406, 408) may be used tocouple the blade (422) to other blades or computing devices forpoint-to-point communications with the blade (422), and so on.

In the example depicted in FIG. 4 , two power interfaces are alsomounted on the connector panel (418) for use by the blade (422) depictedin FIG. 4 when the blade (422) is inserted into a slot (426). The powerinterfaces (412, 414) may be embodied, for example, as an interface to apower bus that is coupled to a power supply for delivering power to oneor more of the blades in the chassis (424). Readers will appreciate thateach power interface (412, 414) may be coupled to an independentlycontrolled power domain, such that enabling or disabling the delivery ofpower to the blade (422) via the first power interface (412) has noimpact on the delivery of power to the blade (422) via the second powerinterface (414), and vice versa. Readers will appreciate that somecomponents within the blade (422) may be configured to receive power viathe first power interface (412) while other components within the blade(422) may be configured to receive power via the second power interface(414), so that the delivery of power to different components within theblade (422) may be independently controlled. For example, computeresources within the blade (422) may receive power via the first powerinterface (412) while storage resources within the blade (422) mayreceive power via the second power interface (414).

In the example depicted in FIG. 4 , a cooling apparatus (410) is alsomounted on the connector panel (418). The cooling apparatus (410) may beembodied, for example, as a fan that is configured to deliver air flowto the blade (422) when the blade is inserted into the slot (426).Readers will appreciate that the connector panel (418) may include otherinterfaces not depicted here, different numbers of interfaces than aredepicted here, and so on. Readers will further appreciate that while aconnector panel (418) is one possible way to enable the blades that aremounted within the chassis (424) to couple to computing devices andcomputing components that are housed in the compartment (416), chassisfor use in storage systems according to embodiments of the presentdisclosure can utilize other mechanisms to enable the blades that aremounted within the chassis (424) to couple to computing devices andcomputing components that are housed in the compartment (416).Furthermore, such computing devices and computing components do not haveto be contained within a distinct compartment (416), as chassis (424)for use in storage systems according to embodiments of the presentdisclosure may be embodied in other ways.

For further explanation, FIG. 5 sets forth a diagram of a hybrid blade(502) useful in storage systems that support independent scaling ofcompute resources and storage resources according to embodiments of thepresent disclosure. The hybrid blade (502) depicted in FIG. 5 isreferred to as a ‘hybrid’ blade because the hybrid blade (502) includesboth compute resources and storage resources.

The compute resources in the hybrid blade (502) depicted in FIG. 5includes a host server (504) that contains a computer processor (506)coupled to memory (510) via a memory bus (508). The computer processor(506) depicted in FIG. 5 may be embodied, for example, as a centralprocessing unit (CPU′) or other form of electronic circuitry configuredto execute computer program instructions. The computer processor (506)may utilize the memory (510) to store data or other information usefulduring the execution of computer program instructions by the computerprocessor (506). Such memory (510) may be embodied, for example, as DRAMthat is utilized by the computer processor (506) to store informationwhen the computer processor (506) is performing computational tasks suchas creating and sending I/O operations to one of the storage units (512,514), breaking up data, reassembling data, and other tasks. In theexample depicted in FIG. 2 , the host server (504) can represent computeresources that the hybrid blade (502) may offer for use by entitiesexecuting on a storage system that includes the hybrid blade (502). Forexample, one or more authorities (which will be described in greaterdetail below) that are executing on the storage system may execute onthe host server (504).

In the example depicted in FIG. 5 , the host server (504) is coupled totwo data communication links (532, 534). Such data communications links(532, 534) may be embodied, for example, as Ethernet links, such thatthe host server (504) can be coupled to a data communication network viaa network adapter (not shown) contained in the host server (504).Through the use of such data communications links (532, 534), the hostserver (504) may receive input/output operations that are directed tothe attached storage units (512, 514), such as requests to read datafrom the attached storage units (512, 514) or requests to write data tothe attached storage units (512, 514), from other blades in a storagesystem that includes the hybrid blade (802).

The hybrid blade (502) depicted in FIG. 5 also includes storageresources in the form of one or more storage units (510, 514). Eachstorage unit (510, 514) may include flash (528, 530) memory as well asother forms of memory (524, 526), such as non-volatile random accessmemory (‘NVRAM’) which will be discussed in greater detail below. In theexample depicted in FIG. 5 , each storage unit (512, 514) can representstorage resources that the hybrid blade (502) may offer for use by usersof a storage system that includes the hybrid blade (502). In the exampledepicted in FIG. 5 , the storage units (512, 514) may include integratedcircuits such as a field-programmable gate array (‘FPGA’) (520, 522),microprocessors such as an Advanced RISC Machine (‘ARM’) microprocessorthat are utilized to write data to and read data from the flash (528,530) memory as well as the other forms of memory (524, 526) in thestorage unit (512, 514), or any other form of computer processor. TheFPGAs (520, 522) and the ARM (516, 518) microprocessors may, in someembodiments, perform operations other than strict memory accesses. Forexample, in some embodiments the FPGAs (520, 522) and the ARM (516, 518)microprocessors may break up data, reassemble data, and so on. In theexample depicted in FIG. 5 , the computer processor (506) may access thestorage units (512, 514) via a data communication bus (536) such as aPeripheral Component Interconnect Express (‘PCIe’) bus. In the exampledepicted in FIG. 5 , the data communication bus (536), ARM (516, 518)microprocessors, and FPGAs (520, 522) form a local access interfacethrough which the local compute resources (e.g., the host server (504))can access the local storage resources (e.g., the flash memory (528,530) and other forms of memory (524, 526)).

In the example depicted in FIG. 5 , the hybrid blade (502) also includesdata communications links (538, 540) that may be used to communicativelycouple one or more of the storage units (512, 514) to other blades inthe storage system. The data communications links (538, 540) may beembodied, for example, as an Ethernet link that enables an FPGA (520,522) in the storage unit (512, 514) to couple to a data communicationsnetwork. The data communications links (538, 540) and the FPGAs (520,522) may collectively form a remote access interface through whichcompute resources on a remote blade can access the local storageresources (e.g., the flash memory (528, 530) and other forms of memory(524, 526)) without utilizing the local compute resources (e.g., thehost server (504)). In such an example, compute resources on a remoteblade may send an instruction to write data to, or read data from, thelocal storage resources directly to the FPGA (520, 522) in the storageunit (512, 514) via the data communications links (538, 540). In such away, compute resources on a remote blade can directly access localstorage resources on the hybrid blade (502) without needing to routesuch an access request through the local compute resources on the hybridblade (502).

Although in some embodiments the remote access interface may be embodiedas an Ethernet interface and the local access interface may be embodiedas a PCIe interface, readers will appreciate that hybrid blades (502)according to embodiments of the present disclosure may utilize othertypes of interfaces for the remote access interface and the local accessinterface. In some embodiments the remote access interface and the localaccess interface may be implemented using the same technologies, inother embodiments the remote access interface and the local accessinterface may be implemented using other technologies, and so on.

In the example depicted in FIG. 5 , the hybrid blade (502) also includesa power interface (546) and a power distribution bus (548) through whichpower can be provided to the host server (504). The power interface(546) may be coupled, for example, to a first power supply, to a firstpower bus that is external to the hybrid blade (502) and provided by thechassis that the blade is mounted within, and so on. Readers willappreciate that the power interface (546) and the power distribution bus(548) may collectively form a first local power domain that isconfigured to deliver power to the local compute resources (e.g., thehost server (504)).

In the example depicted in FIG. 5 , the hybrid blade (502) also includesa power interface (542) and a power distribution bus (544) through whichpower can be provided to one or more of the storage units (512, 514).The power interface (542) may be coupled, for example, to a second powersupply, to a second power bus that is external to the hybrid blade (502)and provided by the chassis that the blade is mounted within, and so on.Readers will appreciate that the power interface (542) and the powerdistribution bus (544) may collectively form a second local power domainthat is configured to deliver power to the local storage resources(e.g., the storage units (512, 514). In the example depicted in FIG. 5 ,the first local power domain and the second local power domain can beindependently operated as the power interfaces (542, 546) may be enabledor disabled independently, the distinct power supplies that are coupledto the power interfaces (542, 546) may be enabled or disabledindependently, the distinct power busses that are coupled to the powerinterfaces (542, 546) may be enabled or disabled independently, and soon. In such a way, the delivery of power to the host server (504) may beenabled or disabled independently of the delivery of power to one ormore of the storage units (512, 514), and vice versa.

Readers will appreciate that in the example depicted in FIG. 5 , thesecond local power domain described in the preceding paragraph can alsoinclude a remote access interface such as the data communications links(538, 540). As described above, the data communications links (538, 540)may be embodied as an Ethernet link that enables an FPGA (520, 522) inthe storage unit (512, 514) to couple to a data communications network.Power may therefore be delivered to the local storage resources (e.g.,the storage units (512, 514)) via the data communications links (538,540), for example, through the use of Power over Ethernet (‘PoE’)techniques. In such a way, when a remote blade is accessing the localstorage resources via the remote access interface, the storage units(512, 514) may be powered using remote access interface, whereas thestorage units (512, 514) may be powered using the power interfaces (542,546) and the power distribution bus (544) when the local computeresources are accessing the local storage resources. In alternativeembodiments, power may be provided to the storage units (512, 514) indifferent ways, so long as the delivery of power to the host server(504) may be enabled or disabled independently of the delivery of powerto one or more of the storage units (512, 514), and vice versa.

The preceding paragraphs describe non-limiting, example embodiments of afirst local power domain and a second local power domain. In alternativeembodiments, the first local power domain and the second local powerdomain may include fewer or additional components. The first local powerdomain and the second local power domain may also be configured todeliver power to components within the hybrid blade (502) incoordination with components that are external to the hybrid blade (502)such as, for example, external power supplies, external power busses,external data communications networks, and so on. The first local powerdomain and the second local power domain may also be coupled to receivepower from the same power source (e.g., the same power supply), so longas the delivery of power to the host server (504) may be enabled ordisabled independently of the delivery of power to one or more of thestorage units (512, 514), and vice versa. In an embodiment where thefirst local power domain and the second local power domain may receivepower from the same power source, the delivery of power to the hostserver (504) may be enabled or disabled independently of the delivery ofpower to one or more of the storage units (512, 514), and vice versa,through the use of a switching mechanism, power delivery network, orother mechanism that enables the delivery of power to each power domainto be blocked or enabled independently. Readers will appreciate thatadditional embodiments are possible that are consistent with the spiritof the present disclosure.

Readers will appreciate that other types of blades may also exist. Forexample, a compute blade may be similar to the hybrid blade (502)depicted in FIG. 5 as the compute blade may include one or more hostservers that are similar to the host server (504) depicted in FIG. 5 .Such a compute blade may be different than the hybrid blade (502)depicted in FIG. 5 , however, as the compute blade may lack the storageunits (512, 514) depicted in FIG. 5 . Readers will further appreciatethat a storage blade may be similar to the hybrid blade (502) depictedin FIG. 5 as the storage blade may include one or more storage unitsthat are similar to the storage units (512, 514) depicted in FIG. 5 .Such a storage blade may be different than the hybrid blade (502)depicted in FIG. 5 , however, as the storage blade may lack the hostserver (504) depicted in FIG. 5 . The example blade (502) depicted inFIG. 5 is included only for explanatory purposes. In other embodiments,the blades may include additional processors, additional storage units,compute resources that are packaged in a different manner, storageresources that are packaged in a different manner, and so on.

For further explanation, FIG. 6 sets forth a diagram of an additionalhybrid blade (602) useful in storage systems that support independentscaling of compute resources and storage resources according toembodiments of the present disclosure. The hybrid blade (602) depictedin FIG. 6 is similar to the hybrid blade (502) depicted in FIG. 5 , asthe hybrid blade (802) depicted in FIG. 6 also includes local storageresources such as the storage units (512, 514), local compute resourcessuch as the host server (504), a local access interface through whichthe local compute resources can access the local storage resources, aremote access interface through which compute resources on a remoteblade can access the local storage resources without utilizing the localcompute resources, a first local power domain configured to deliverpower to the local compute resources, and a second local power domainconfigured to deliver power to the local storage resources, where thefirst local power domain and the second local power domain can beindependently operated.

The hybrid blade (602) depicted in FIG. 6 also includes a switchingmechanism (604, 606) that is configured to provide access to localstorage resources such as the storage units (512, 514). Each switchingmechanism (604, 606) may be configured to couple to the local computeresources via a first interface and further configured to couple toremote compute resources via a second interface. The first switchingmechanism (604), for example, may be coupled to local compute resourcesin the form of a host server (504) via a first interface such as thelocal access interface and also coupled to remote compute resources inthe form of a host server on a remote blade (not shown) via a secondinterface such as the remote access interface that includes the datacommunications link (538). The second switching mechanism (606) may becoupled to local compute resources in the form of a host server (504)via a first interface such as the local access interface and alsocoupled to remote compute resources in the form of a host server on aremote blade (not shown) via a second interface such as the remoteaccess interface that includes the data communications link (540). Inthe specific example illustrated in FIG. 6 , the first switchingmechanism (604) is coupled to the remote access interface that includesthe data communications link (538), such that the storage unit (512) maybe accessed by a host server on a remote blade without utilizing thelocal compute resources in the hybrid blade (602). The second switchingmechanism (606), however, is coupled to the local access interface, suchthat the storage unit (514) may be accessed by the local computeresources in the hybrid blade (602). In such an example, however, thedashed lines in the switching mechanisms (604, 606) are used toillustrate that each switching mechanism (604, 606) may be reconfiguredto couple the storage units (512, 514) to a different datacommunications pathway. In the example depicted in FIG. 6 , eachswitching mechanism (604, 606) may be embodied as a mechanical devicethat can facilitate a data communications connection between aparticular storage unit (512, 514) and a plurality of datacommunications pathways, although at any particular time each switchingmechanism (604, 606) may only facilitate data communications between theparticular storage unit (512, 514) and a single data communicationspathway.

For further explanation, FIG. 7 sets forth a diagram of a storage blade(702) useful in storage systems that support independent scaling ofcompute resources and storage resources according to embodiments of thepresent disclosure. The storage blade (702) depicted in FIG. 7 issimilar to the hybrid blade described above with reference to FIG. 5 andFIG. 6 , although the storage blade (702) is different than the hybridblades described above as the storage blade (702) does not include anylocal compute resources that are available for use by a storage systemthat the storage blade (702) is included within.

The storage blade (702) depicted in FIG. 7 includes storage resources inthe form of one or more storage units (512, 514). Each storage unit(512, 514) may include flash (528, 530) memory as well as other forms ofmemory (524, 526), such as ‘NVRAM, which will be discussed in greaterdetail below. In the example depicted in FIG. 4 , each storage unit(512, 514) can represent storage resources that the storage blade (702)may offer for use by users of a storage system that includes the storageblade (702).

In the example depicted in FIG. 7 , the storage units (512, 514) mayinclude integrated circuits such as an FPGA (520, 522), microprocessorssuch as an ARM microprocessor that are utilized to write data to andread data from the flash (528, 530) memory as well as the other forms ofmemory (524, 526) in the storage unit (512, 514), or any other form ofcomputer processor. The FPGAs (520, 522) and the ARM (516, 518)microprocessors may, in some embodiments, perform operations other thanstrict memory accesses. For example, in some embodiments the FPGAs (520,522) and the ARM (516, 518) microprocessors may break up data,reassemble data, and so on.

In the example depicted in FIG. 7 , the storage blade (702) alsoincludes data communications links (538, 540) that may be used to coupleone or more of the storage units (512, 514) to other blades in thestorage system. The data communications links (538, 540) may beembodied, for example, as an Ethernet link that enables an FPGA (520,522) in the storage unit (512, 514) to couple to a data communicationsnetwork. The data communications links (538, 540) and the FPGAs (520,522) may collectively form a remote access interface through whichcompute resources on a remote blade can access the local storageresources (e.g., the flash memory (528, 530) and other forms of memory(524, 526)) without utilizing any local compute resources on the storageblade (702). In such an example, compute resources on a remote blade maysend an instruction to write data to, or read data from, the localstorage resources directly to the FPGA (520, 522) in the storage unit(512, 514) via the data communications links (538, 540). In such a way,compute resources on a remote blade can directly access local storageresources on the hybrid blade (502) without needing to route such anaccess request through local compute resources on the storage blade(702).

In the example depicted in FIG. 7 , the storage blade (702) alsoincludes a power interface (542) and a power distribution bus (544)through which power can be provided to one or more of the storage units(512, 514). The power interface (542) may be coupled, for example, to apower supply, to a power bus that is external to the hybrid blade (502)and provided by the chassis that the blade is mounted within, and so on.Readers will appreciate that the power interface (542) and the powerdistribution bus (544) may collectively form a local power domainconfigured to deliver power to the local storage resources (e.g., thestorage units (512, 514). Readers will appreciate that in the exampledepicted in FIG. 7 , the local power domain can also include a remoteaccess interface such as the data communications links (538, 540). Asdescribed above, the data communications links (538, 540) may beembodied as an Ethernet link that enables an FPGA (520, 522) in thestorage unit (512, 514) to couple to a data communications network.Power may therefore be delivered to the local storage resources (e.g.,the storage units (512, 514)) via the data communications links (538,540), for example, through the use of PoE techniques. In such a way,power may be delivered to the storage units (512, 514) via the remoteaccess interface, via the power interface (542) and power distributionbus (544), or any combination thereof.

For further explanation, FIG. 8 sets forth a diagram of a compute blade(802) useful in storage systems that support independent scaling ofcompute resources and storage resources according to embodiments of thepresent disclosure. The compute blade (802) depicted in FIG. 8 issimilar to the hybrid blade described above with reference to FIG. 5 andFIG. 6 , although the compute blade (802) is different than the hybridblades described above as the compute blade (802) does not include anylocal storage resources that may be used that are available for use by astorage system that the compute blade (802) is included within.

The compute resources in the compute blade (802) depicted in FIG. 8includes a host server (504) that contains a computer processor (506)coupled to memory (510) via a memory bus (508). The computer processor(506) depicted in FIG. 8 may be embodied, for example, as a CPU or otherform of electronic circuitry configured to execute computer programinstructions. The computer processor (506) may utilize the memory (510)to store data or other information useful during the execution ofcomputer program instructions by the computer processor (506). Suchmemory (510) may be embodied, for example, as DRAM that is utilized bythe computer processor (506) to store information when the computerprocessor (506) is performing computational tasks such as creating andsending I/O operations to one of the storage units (512, 514), breakingup data, reassembling data, and other tasks. In the example depicted inFIG. 5 , the host server (504) can represent compute resources that thecompute blade (802) may offer for use by entities executing on a storagesystem that includes the compute blade (802). For example, one or moreauthorities (which will be described in greater detail below) that areexecuting on the storage system may execute on the host server (504). Inthe example depicted in FIG. 8 , the host server (504) is coupled to twodata communication links (532, 534). Such data communications links(532, 534) may be embodied, for example, as Ethernet links, such thatthe host server (504) can be coupled to a data communication network viaa network adapter (not shown) contained in the host server (504).

In the example depicted in FIG. 8 , the compute blade (802) alsoincludes a power interface (546) and a power distribution bus (548)through which power can be provided to the host server (504). The powerinterface (546) may be coupled, for example, to a power supply, to apower bus that is external to the compute blade (802) and provided bythe chassis that the blade is mounted within, and so on. Readers willappreciate that the power interface (546) and the power distribution bus(548) may collectively form a local power domain that is configured todeliver power to the local compute resources (e.g., the host server(504)) in the compute blade (802).

For further explanation, FIG. 9 sets forth a diagram of a storage systemthat supports independent scaling of compute resources and storageresources according to embodiments of the present disclosure. Thestorage system of FIG. 9 includes a plurality of chassis (602, 606, 610,614) mounted within a rack (600). The rack (600) depicted in FIG. 9 maybe embodied as a standardized frame or enclosure for mounting multipleequipment modules, such as multiple chassis (602, 606, 610, 614). Therack (600) may be embodied, for example, as a 19-inch rack that includesedges or ears that protrude on each side, thereby enabling a chassis(602, 606, 610, 614) or other module to be fastened to the rack (600)with screws or some other form of fastener. Readers will appreciate thatwhile the storage system depicted in FIG. 6 includes a plurality ofchassis (602, 606, 610, 614) mounted within a single rack (600), inother embodiments the plurality of chassis (602, 606, 610, 614) may bedistributed across multiple racks. For example, a first chassis in thestorage system may be mounted within a first rack, a second chassis inthe storage system may be mounted within a second rack, and so on.

Although depicted in less detail, each of the chassis (602, 606, 610,614) depicted in FIG. 9 may be similar to the chassis described abovewith reference to FIG. 1 , as the chassis (602, 606, 610, 614) include aplurality of slots, where each slot is configured to receive a blade.The chassis (602, 606, 610, 614) depicted in FIG. 9 may be embodied, forexample, as passive elements that includes no logic. Each chassis (602,606, 610, 614) may include a mechanism, such as a power distributionbus, that is utilized to provide power to each blade that is mountedwithin the chassis (602, 606, 610, 614). Each chassis (602, 606, 610,614) may further include a communication mechanism, such as acommunication bus, that enables communication between each blade that ismounted within the chassis (602, 606, 610, 614). The communicationmechanism may be embodied, for example, as an Ethernet bus, a PCIe bus,InfiniBand bus, and so on. In some embodiments, each chassis (602, 606,610, 614) may include at least two instances of both the powerdistribution mechanism and the communication mechanism, where eachinstance of the power distribution mechanism and each instance of thecommunication mechanism may be enabled or disabled independently.

Each chassis (602, 606, 610, 614) depicted in FIG. 9 may also includeone or more ports for receiving an external communication bus thatenables communication between multiple chassis (602, 606, 610, 614),directly or through a switch, as well as communications between achassis (602, 606, 610, 614) and an external client system. The externalcommunication bus may use a technology such as Ethernet, InfiniBand,Fibre Channel, and so on. In some embodiments, the externalcommunication bus may use different communication bus technologies forinter-chassis communication than is used for communication with anexternal client system. In embodiments where one or more switches aredeployed, each switch may act as a translation layer between multipleprotocols or technologies. When multiple chassis (602, 606, 610, 614)are connected to define a storage cluster, the storage cluster may beaccessed by a client using either proprietary interfaces or standardinterfaces such a PCIe interface, a SAS interfaces, a SATA interface, orother interface using protocols such as network file system (‘NFS’),common internet file system (‘CIFS’), small computer system interface(‘SCSI’), hypertext transfer protocol (‘HTTP’), Object storageprotocols, and so on. Translation from the client protocol may occur atthe switch, external communication bus, or within each blade.

Each chassis (602, 606, 610, 614) depicted in FIG. 9 houses fifteenblades (604, 608, 612, 616), although in other embodiments each chassis(602, 606, 610, 614) may house more or fewer blades. Each of the blades(604, 608, 612, 616) depicted in FIG. 9 may be embodied, for example, asa computing device that includes one or more computer processors, DRAM,flash memory, interfaces for one more communication busses, interfacesfor one or more power distribution busses, cooling components, and soon. Readers will appreciate that the blades (604, 608, 612, 616)depicted in FIG. 9 may be embodied as different types of blades, suchthat the collective set of blades (604, 608, 612, 616) includeheterogeneous members. Blades may be of different types as some blades(604, 608, 612, 616) may only provide processing resources to theoverall storage system, some blades (604, 608, 612, 616) may onlyprovide storage resources to the overall storage system, and some blades(604, 608, 612, 616) may provide both processing resources and storageresources to the overall storage system. Furthermore, even the blades(604, 608, 612, 616) that are identical in type may be different interms of the amount of storage resources that the blades (604, 608, 612,616) provide to the overall storage system. For example, a first bladethat only provides storage resources to the overall storage system mayprovide 8 TB of storage while a second blade that only provides storageresources to the overall storage system may provide 256 TB of storage.The blades (604, 608, 612, 616) that are identical in type may also bedifferent in terms of the amount of processing resources that the blades(604, 608, 612, 616) provide to the overall storage system. For example,a first blade that only provides processing resources to the overallstorage system may include more processors or more powerful processorsthan a second blade that only provides processing resources to theoverall storage system. Readers will appreciate that other differencesmay also exist between two individual blades and that blade uniformityis not required according to embodiments described herein.

Although not explicitly depicted in FIG. 9 , each chassis (602, 606,610, 614) may include one or more modules, data communications busses,or other apparatus that is used to identify which type of blade isinserted into a particular slot of the chassis (602, 606, 610, 614). Insuch an example, a management module may be configured to requestinformation from each blade in each chassis (602, 606, 610, 614) wheneach blade is powered on, when the blade is inserted into a chassis(602, 606, 610, 614), or at some other time. The information received bythe management module can include, for example, a special purposeidentifier maintained by the blade that identifies the type (e.g.,storage blade, compute blade, hybrid blade) of blade that has beeninserted into the chassis (602, 606, 610, 614). In an alternativeembodiment, each blade (604, 608, 612, 616) may be configured toautomatically provide such information to a management module as part ofa registration process.

In the example depicted in FIG. 9 , the storage system may be initiallyconfigured by a management module that is executing remotely. Themanagement module may be executing, for example, in a network switchcontrol processor. Readers will appreciate that such a management modulemay be executing on any remote CPU and may be coupled to the storagesystem via one or more data communication networks. Alternatively, themanagement module may be executing locally as the management module maybe executing on one or more of the blades (604, 608, 612, 616) in thestorage system.

The storage system depicted in FIG. 9 includes a first blade (618)mounted within one of the chassis (602) that includes one or morestorage resources but does not include compute resources. The firstblade (618) may be embodied, for example, as a storage blade such as thestorage blade described above with reference to FIG. 7 . The storagesystem depicted in FIG. 9 also includes a second blade (620) mountedwithin one of the chassis (606) that includes one or more computeresources but does not include storage resources. The second blade (620)may be embodied, for example, as a compute blade such as the computeblade described above with reference to FIG. 8 . The storage systemdepicted in FIG. 9 also includes a third blade (622) mounted within oneof the chassis (610) that includes one or more storage resources and oneor more compute resources. The third blade (622) may be embodied, forexample, as a hybrid blade such as the hybrid blades described abovewith reference to FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 .

The third blade (622) depicted in FIG. 9 may include a local accessinterface through which the compute resources in the third blade (622)can access the storage resources in the third blade (622). The computeresources in the third blade (622) may be embodied, for example, as oneor more host servers that include a computer processor coupled to memoryvia a memory bus. The storage resources in the third blade (622) may beembodied, for example, as one or more storage units that include flashmemory as well as other forms of memory, such as NVRAM, which will bediscussed in greater detail below. In such an example, the computeresources in the third blade (622) may access the storage resources(622) in the third blade (622), for example, via a local accessinterface such as a data communication bus that forms a datacommunications path between the compute resources in the third blade(622) and the storage resources (622) in the third blade (622), as wellas any other microprocessors, FPGAs, or other computing devices requiredto carry out data communications between the compute resources in thethird blade (622) and the storage resources (622) in the third blade(622).

The third blade (622) depicted in FIG. 9 may also include a remoteaccess interface through which compute resources in a remote blade canaccess the storage resources in the third blade (622) without utilizingthe compute resources in the third blade (622). The remote accessinterface may be embodied, for example, as a data communicationsinterface in the third blade (622) that enables an FPGA, microprocessor,or other form of computing device that is part of the storage resourcesin the third blade (622) to couple to a data communications network. Insuch an example, compute resources on a remote blade may send aninstruction to write data to, or read data from, the storage resourceson the third blade (622) directly to microprocessor, or other form ofcomputing device that is part of the storage resources in the thirdblade (622). In such a way, compute resources on a remote blade candirectly access storage resources on the third blade (622) withoutneeding to route such an access request through the compute resources onthe third blade (622). Readers will appreciate that the remote accessinterface in the third blade (622) may utilize first data communicationsprotocol while the local access interface in the third blade (622) mayutilize a different, second data communications protocol.

The third blade (622) depicted in FIG. 9 may also include a first powerinterface for delivering power to the compute resources in the thirdblade (622). The first power interface may be embodied, for example, asa port for coupling to a power source that is external to the thirdblade (622) and a power distribution bus that couples the port to one ormore compute resources such as a host server. The port may be coupled,for example, to a first power supply, to a first power bus that isexternal to the third blade (622) and provided by the chassis (610) thatthe blade is mounted within, and so on.

The third blade (622) depicted in FIG. 9 may also include a second powerinterface for delivering power to the storage resources in the thirdblade (622). The second power interface may be embodied, for example, asa port for coupling to a power source that is external to the thirdblade (622) and a power distribution bus that couples the port to one ormore storage resources such as one or more storage units. The port maybe coupled, for example, to a second power supply, to a second power busthat is external to the third blade (622) and provided by the chassis(610) that the blade is mounted within, and so on.

In the example depicted in FIG. 9 , power delivery to the first powerinterface in the third blade (622) may be controlled independently ofpower delivery to the second power interface in the third blade (622).Power delivery to the first power interface may be controlledindependently of power delivery to the second power interface, forexample, because the first power interface is coupled to a first powersource and the second power interface is coupled to a second powersource. In such an example, powering up or down either power sourcewould result in power delivery to the first power interface beingcontrolled independently of power delivery to the second powerinterface.

Power delivery to the first power interface may also be controlledindependently of power delivery to the second power interface, forexample, because the first power interface can be enabled or disabledindependently of enabling or disabling the second power interface, thesecond power interface can be enabled or disabled independently ofenabling or disabling the first power interface, and so on. In such anexample, each of the power interfaces may include some mechanism thatallows the power interface to block the flow of electricity through thepower interface, such that the power interface is disabled. Each powerinterfaces may likewise include some mechanism, which may be the samemechanism as described in the preceding sentence, that allows the powerinterface to permit the flow of electricity through the power interface,such that the power interface is enabled.

In the example depicted in FIG. 9 , the second power interface in thethird blade (622) may be included within the remote access interface inthe third blade (622). As described above, the remote access interfacein the third blade (622) may be embodied as an Ethernet link thatenables an FPGA, microprocessor, or other computing device in a storageunit in the third blade (622) to couple to a data communicationsnetwork. Power may therefore be delivered to the storage unit in thethird blade (622) such an Ethernet link, for example, through the use ofPoE techniques. In such a way, when a remote blade is accessing thestorage unit in the third blade (622) via the remote access interface inthe third blade (622), such a storage unit may be powered using remoteaccess interface.

The third blade (622) depicted in FIG. 9 may also include a switchingmechanism configured to provide access to the storage resources in thethird blade (622), where the switching mechanism is configured to coupleto compute resources in the third blade (622) via a first interface andalso configured to couple to compute resources on a remote blade via asecond interface. The switching mechanism may be coupled to localstorage resources via a first interface such as a data communicationslink that is coupled to compute resources within the third blade (622).The switching mechanism may also be coupled to local storage resourcesvia a second data communications link that is coupled to computeresources on another blade in the storage system, such that the localstorage resources may be accessed without utilizing compute resourceswithin the third blade (622). The switching mechanism may be embodied asa mechanical device that can facilitate a data communications connectionbetween a particular storage unit and a plurality of data communicationspathways, although at any particular time the switching mechanism mayonly facilitate data communications between the particular storage unitand a single data communications pathway.

For further explanation, FIG. 10 sets forth a diagram of a storagesystem (702) that supports independent scaling of compute resources andstorage resources according to embodiments of the present disclosure.The storage system (702) depicted in FIG. 10 includes one or morechassis (704, 738). Although depicted in less detail, each of thechassis (704, 738) depicted in FIG. 10 may be similar to the chassisdescribed above with reference to FIG. 4 , as each chassis (704, 738)includes a plurality of slots, where each slot is configured to receivea blade. Each chassis (704, 738) may include mechanisms, such as one ormore power distribution busses, that are utilized to provide power toblades that are mounted within the chassis (704, 738). Each chassis(704, 738) may further include mechanisms, such as one or morecommunication busses, that facilitate data communications between one ormore blades that are mounted within the chassis (704, 738), as well asother data communications devices such as network switches that aremounted within the chassis (704, 738). The communication mechanisms maybe embodied, for example, as one or more Ethernet busses, as one or morePCIe busses, as one or more InfiniBand busses, and so on. In someembodiments, each chassis (704, 738) may include at least two instancesof both a power distribution mechanism and a communication mechanism,where each instance of the power distribution mechanism and eachinstance of the communication mechanism may be enabled or disabledindependently.

Each chassis (704, 738) depicted in FIG. 10 may also include one or moreports for receiving an external communication bus that enablescommunication between multiple chassis (704, 738), directly or through aswitch, as well as communications between a chassis (704, 738) and anexternal client system. The external communication bus may use atechnology such as Ethernet, InfiniBand, Fibre Channel, and so on. Insome embodiments, the external communication bus may use differentcommunication bus technologies for inter-chassis communication than isused for communication with an external client system. In embodimentswhere one or more switches are deployed, each switch may act as atranslation layer between multiple protocols or technologies. Whenmultiple chassis (704, 738) are connected to define a storage cluster,the storage cluster may be accessed by a client using either proprietaryinterfaces or standard interfaces such a PCIe interface, a SASinterfaces, a SATA interface, or other interface using protocols such asNFS, CIFS, SCSI, HTTP, Object, and so on. Translation from the clientprotocol may occur at the switch, external communication bus, or withineach blade.

Although not explicitly depicted in FIG. 10 , each chassis (704, 738)may include one or more modules, data communications busses, or otherapparatus that is used to identify which type of blade is inserted intoa particular slot of the chassis (704, 738). In such an example, amanagement module may be configured to request information from eachblade in each chassis (704, 738) when each blade is powered on, when theblade is inserted into a chassis (704, 738), or at some other time. Theinformation received by the management module can include, for example,a special purpose identifier maintained by the blade that identifies thetype (e.g., storage blade, compute blade, hybrid blade) of blade thathas been inserted into the chassis (704, 738). In an alternativeembodiment, each blade may be configured to automatically provide suchinformation to a management module as part of a registration process.

The storage system (702) depicted in FIG. 10 also includes a pluralityof compute resources (714, 716, 748). The compute resources (714, 716,748) in the storage system (702) depicted in FIG. 10 may be embodied,for example, as one or more host servers such as the host serversdescribed above with reference to FIGS. 5, 6, and 8 . Such host serversmay reside in blades (752, 754, 756) that are mounted within one or moreslots (706, 708, 740) in the storage system (702).

The storage system (702) depicted in FIG. 10 also includes a pluralityof storage resources (734, 736, 750). The storage resources (734, 736,750) in the storage system (702) depicted in FIG. 10 may be embodied,for example, as one or more storage units such as the storage unitsdescribed above with reference to FIGS. 5, 6, and 7 . Such storage unitsmay reside in blades (752, 754, 758) that are mounted within one or moreslots (706, 708, 742) in the storage system (702).

The storage system (702) depicted in FIG. 10 also includes a pluralityof blades (752, 754, 756, 758). In the example depicted in FIG. 10 ,each of the blades (752, 754, 756, 758) includes at least one computeresource (714, 716, 748) or at least one storage resource (734, 736,750). Each of the blades (752, 754, 756, 758) may therefore be embodied,for example, as a hybrid blade, as a compute blade, or as a storageblade as described above with reference to FIGS. 5, 6, 7, and 8 .

In the example storage system (702) depicted in FIG. 10 , each of thestorage resources (734, 736, 750) may be directly accessed by each ofthe compute resources (714, 716, 748) without utilizing an intermediatecompute resource (714, 716, 748). Each of the storage resources (734,736, 750) may be directly accessed by each of the compute resources(714, 716, 748) without utilizing an intermediate compute resource (714,716, 748), for example, through the use of a remote access interfacethat provides access to the storage resources (734, 736, 750). Such aremote access interface may be embodied, for example, as an Ethernetlink is coupled to an FPGA in a storage unit, thereby enabling thestorage unit to be coupled for data communications with a datacommunications network that each of the remote compute resources (714,716, 748) may also be coupled to. In such an example, compute resourceson a remote blade can access a storage unit on a local blade withoututilizing the compute resources on the local blade as the computeresources on the remote blade may send an instruction to write data to,or read data from, the storage unit, without routing such an instructionthrough compute resources on the local blade.

In the example depicted in FIG. 10 , the storage system (702) alsoincludes a first power domain configured to deliver power to one or moreof the compute resources. The first power domain may be embodied, forexample, as a power supply, power distribution bus, and power interfaceto a host server, where the first power interface is configured todeliver power to one or more of the compute resources. In the exampledepicted in FIG. 10 , three power domains (710, 712, 744) are depictedthat may serve as distinct instances of a first power domain that isconfigured to deliver power to one or more of the compute resources(714, 716, 748). Readers will appreciate that although each of thecompute resources (714, 716, 748) depicted in FIG. 10 receive power froma distinct instance of a first power domain, in other embodiments, oneor more of the compute resources (714, 716, 748) may be configured toreceive power from the same instance of a first power domain, such thatmultiple compute resources (714, 716, 748) may be powered up or powereddown by enabling or disabling the delivery of power by a single instanceof a first power domain.

In the example depicted in FIG. 10 , the storage system (702) alsoincludes a second power domain configured to deliver power to thestorage resources. The second power domain may be embodied, for example,as a power supply, power distribution bus, and power interface to astorage unit, where the second power domain is configured to deliverpower to one or more of the storage resources. In the example depictedin FIG. 10 , three power domains (730, 732, 746) are depicted that mayserve as distinct instances of a second power domain that is configuredto deliver power to one or more of the storage resources (734, 736,750). Readers will appreciate that although each of the storageresources (734, 736, 750) depicted in FIG. 10 receive power from adistinct instance of a second power domain, in other embodiments, one ormore of the storage resources (734, 736, 750) may be configured toreceive power from the same instance of a second power domain, such thatmultiple storage resources (734, 736, 750) may be powered up or powereddown by enabling or disabling the delivery of power by a single instanceof a second power domain.

The preceding paragraphs describe non-limiting, example embodiments of afirst power domain and a second power domain. In some embodiments, thefirst power domain and the second power domain may include fewer oradditional components. The first power domain and the second powerdomain may also be configured to deliver power to components within thestorage system (702) in coordination with components such as, forexample, external power supplies, external power busses, external datacommunications networks, and so on. The first power domain and thesecond power domain may also be coupled to receive power from the samepower source (e.g., the same power supply), so long as the delivery ofpower to one or more compute resources (714, 716, 748) may be enabled ordisabled independently of the delivery of power to one or more storageresources (734, 736, 750), and vice versa. In an embodiment where thefirst power domain and the second power domain receive power from thesame power source, the delivery of power to one or more computeresources (714, 716, 748) may be enabled or disabled independently ofthe delivery of power to one or more storage resources (734, 736, 750),and vice versa, through the use of a switching mechanism, power deliverynetwork, or other mechanism that enables the delivery of power to eachpower domain to be blocked or enabled independently. Readers willappreciate that additional embodiments are possible that are consistentwith the spirit of the present disclosure.

In the example depicted in FIG. 10 , each instance of a first powerdomain can be operated independently of each instance of a second powerdomain. Each instance of a first power domain can be operatedindependently of each instance of a second power domain as the powerinterfaces within each power domain (710, 712, 730, 732, 744, 746) maybe enabled or disabled independently, the distinct power supplies thatprovide power to each power domain (710, 712, 730, 732, 744, 746) may beenabled or disabled independently, the distinct power busses that areincluded in each power domain (710, 712, 730, 732, 744, 746) may beenabled or disabled independently, and so on. In such a way, thedelivery of power to one or more compute resources (714, 716, 748) maybe enabled or disabled independently of the delivery of power to one ormore storage resources (734, 736, 750), and vice versa. Because thedelivery of power to one or more compute resources (714, 716, 748) maybe enabled or disabled independently of the delivery of power to one ormore storage resources (734, 736, 750), independent scaling of each typeof resources may be achieved by enabling or disabling the delivery ofpower to only one type (i.e., storage or compute) of resource. Forexample, enabling the delivery of power to one or more storage resourcesincreases the amount of storage resources available in the storagesystem (702) without impacting the amount of compute resources availablein the storage system (702), disabling the delivery of power to one ormore storage resources decreases the amount of storage resourcesavailable in the storage system (702) without impacting the amount ofcompute resources available in the storage system (702), enabling thedelivery of power to one or more compute resources increases the amountof compute resources available in the storage system (702) withoutimpacting the amount of storage resources available in the storagesystem (702), disabling the delivery of power to one or more computeresources decreases the amount of compute resources available in thestorage system (702) without impacting the amount of storage resourcesavailable in the storage system (702), and so on.

The storage system (702) depicted in FIG. 10 includes a blade (756) thatincludes compute resources (748) but does not include storage resources.Although the blade (756) that includes compute resources (748) but doesnot include storage resources is depicted in less detail, readers willappreciate that the blade (756) may be similar to the compute bladedescribed above with reference to FIG. 8 . The storage system (702)depicted in FIG. 10 also includes a blade (758) that includes storageresources (750) but does not include any compute resources. Although theblade (758) that includes storage resources (750) but does not includeany compute resources is depicted in less detail, readers willappreciate that the blade (758) may be similar to the storage bladedescribed above with reference to FIG. 7 . The storage system (702)depicted in FIG. 10 also includes blades (752, 754) that include storageresources (734, 736) and compute resources (714, 716). Although theblades (752, 754) that include storage resources (734, 736) and computeresources (714, 716) are depicted in less detail, readers willappreciate that the blades (752, 754) may be similar to the hybridblades described above with reference to FIG. 5 and FIG. 6 .

In the example depicted in FIG. 10 , each of the blades (752, 754) thatinclude storage resources (734, 736) and compute resources (714, 716)can also include a local access interface (718, 720) through which thelocal compute resources (714, 716) can access the local storageresources (734, 736). Each local access interface (718, 720) may beembodied, for example, as a data communication bus that forms a datacommunications path between the compute resources (714, 716) in aparticular blade (752, 754) and one or more storage resources (734, 736)within the same particular blade (752, 754), as well as any othermicroprocessors, FPGAs, or other computing devices required to carry outdata communications between the compute resources (714, 716) in aparticular blade (752, 754) and one or more storage resources (734, 736)within the same particular blade (752, 754).

In the example depicted in FIG. 10 , each of the blades (752, 754) thatinclude storage resources (734, 736) and compute resources (714, 716)can also include a remote access interface (722, 724) through whichcompute resources (748) on a remote blade (756) can access the localstorage resources (734, 736) without utilizing the local computeresources (714, 716). Each remote access interface (722, 724) may beembodied, for example, as a data communications interface in each of theblades (752, 754) that enables an FPGA, microprocessor, or other form ofcomputing device that is part of the storage resources (734, 736) in aparticular blade (752, 754) to couple to a data communications network.In such an example, compute resources (714, 716, 748) on a remote blade(752, 754, 756) may send an instruction to write data to, or read datafrom, the storage resources (734, 736) in a different blade (752, 754)directly to microprocessor, or other form of computing device that ispart of the storage resources (734, 736) in the different blade (752,754). For example, compute resources (714, 748) on two of the blades(752, 756) may directly send an instruction to write data to, or readdata from, the storage resources (736) in another blade (754) withoututilizing the compute resources (716) on the targeted blade (754),compute resources (716, 748) on two of the blades (754, 756) maydirectly send an instruction to write data to, or read data from, thestorage resources (734) in another blade (752) without utilizing thecompute resources (714) on the targeted blade (752), and so on.

In the example depicted in FIG. 10 , each of the blades (752, 754) thatinclude storage resources (734, 736) and compute resources (714, 716)can also include a switching mechanism (728, 728) configured to provideaccess to the local storage resources (734, 736), where the switchingmechanism (726, 728) is coupled to the local compute resources (714,716) via the local access interface (718, 720) and the switchingmechanism (726, 728) is coupled to the compute resources (714, 716, 748)on a remote blade (752, 754, 756) via a remote access interface (722,724). For example, the switching mechanism (726) in one of theillustrated blades (752) may be coupled to the local compute resources(714) on the illustrated blade (752) via the local access interface(718) and the switching mechanism (726, 728) may also be coupled to thecompute resources (716, 748) on a remote blade (754, 756) via a remoteaccess interface (722) on the illustrated blade (752). Likewise, theswitching mechanism (728) in another illustrated blade (754) may becoupled to its local compute resources (716) via the local accessinterface (720) and the switching mechanism (728) may also be coupled tothe compute resources (714, 748) on a remote blade (752, 756) via aremote access interface (724) on the blade (754). In the exampledepicted in FIG. 10 , each switching mechanism (726, 728) may be similarto the switching mechanisms described above with reference to FIG. 6 .

In the example depicted in FIG. 10 , each remote access interface (722,724) may utilize a first data communications protocol and each localaccess interface (718, 720) may utilize a second data communicationsprotocol. For each, the storage resources (734, 736) may be accessed bylocal compute resources (714, 716) via the local access interface (718,720) by utilizing a PCIe data communications link whereas the storageresources (734, 736) may be accessed by compute resources (714, 716,748) on a remote blade (752, 754, 756) via the remote access interface(722, 724) by utilizing an Ethernet data communications link.

In the example depicted in FIG. 10 , each of the blades (752, 754) thatinclude storage resources (734, 736) and compute resources (714, 716)can also include a first local power domain (710, 712) configured todeliver power to the local compute resources (714, 716). The first localpower domain (710, 712) in each of the blades (752, 754) that includestorage resources (734, 736) and compute resources (714, 716) may beembodied, for example, as a power supply, power distribution bus, andpower interface to a host server, where the first power interface isconfigured to deliver power to one or more of the compute resources(714, 716) in the blade (752, 754). In the example depicted in FIG. 10 ,each of the blades (752, 754) that include storage resources (734, 736)and compute resources (714, 716) can also include a second local powerdomain (730, 732) configured to deliver power to the local storageresources (734, 736). The second local power domain (730, 732) in eachof the blades (752, 754) that include storage resources (734, 736) andcompute resources (714, 716) may be embodied, for example, as a powersupply, power distribution bus, and power interface to a storage unit,where the second power domain is configured to deliver power to one ormore of the storage resources (734, 736) in the blade (752, 754).

Readers will appreciate that, for each of the blades (752, 754) thatinclude storage resources (734, 736) and compute resources (714, 716),the first local power domain (710, 712) and the second local powerdomain (730, 732) may be independently operated. The first local powerdomain (710, 712) and the second local power domain (730, 732) in aparticular blade (752, 754) may be operated independently as the powerinterfaces within each power domain (710, 712, 730, 732) may be enabledor disabled independently, the distinct power supplies that providepower to each power domain (710, 712, 730, 732) may be enabled ordisabled independently, the distinct power busses that are included ineach power domain (710, 712, 730, 732) may be enabled or disabledindependently, and so on. In such a way, the delivery of power to one ormore compute resources (714, 716) may be enabled or disabledindependently of the delivery of power to one or more storage resources(734, 736), and vice versa.

In the example depicted in FIG. 10 , the storage resources (734, 736,750) within at least one blade (752, 754, 756) may receive power via aremote access interface. As described above, the storage resources (734,736, 750) within each blade (752, 754, 756) may be accessed via a remoteaccess interface (722, 724, 760). Such remote access interface (722,724, 760) can include an Ethernet link that enables a storage unit tocouple to a data communications network. Power may therefore bedelivered to the storage resources (734, 736, 750), for example, throughthe use of PoE techniques. In such a way, when a remote blade isaccessing the storage resources (734, 736, 750) within a particularblade (752, 754, 758) via the remote access interface (722, 724, 760),the storage resources (734, 736, 750) may be powered using the remoteaccess interface (722, 724, 760). In alternative embodiments, power maybe provided to the storage resources (734, 736, 750) in different ways.

For further explanation, FIG. 11 sets forth a diagram of a set of blades(802, 804, 806, 808) useful in a storage system that supportsindependent scaling of compute resources and storage resources accordingto embodiments of the present disclosure. Although blades will bedescribed in greater detail below, the blades (802, 804, 806, 808)depicted in FIG. 11 may include compute resources (810, 812, 814),storage resources in the form of flash memory (830, 832, 834), storageresources in the form of non-volatile random access memory (‘NVRAM’)(836, 838, 840), or any combination thereof. In the example depicted inFIG. 11 , the blades (802, 804, 806, 808) are of differing types. Forexample, one blade (806) includes only compute resources (814), anotherblade (808) includes only storage resources, depicted here as flash(834) memory and NVRAM (840), and two of the blades (802, 804) includecompute resources (810, 812) as well as storage resources in the form offlash (830, 832) memory and NVRAM (836, 838). In such of an example, theblade (806) that includes only compute resources (814) may be referredto as a compute blade, the blade (808) that includes only storageresources may be referred to as a storage blade, and the blades (802,804) that include both compute resources (810, 812) and storageresources may be referred to as a hybrid blade.

The compute resources (810, 812, 814) depicted in FIG. 11 may beembodied, for example, as one or more computer processors, as well asmemory that is utilized by the computer processor but not included aspart of general storage within the storage system. The compute resources(810, 812, 814) may be coupled for data communication with other bladesand with external client systems, for example, via one or more datacommunication busses that are coupled to the compute resources (810,812, 814) via one or more data communication adapters.

The flash memory (830, 832, 834) depicted in FIG. 11 may be embodied,for example, as multiple flash dies which may be referred to as packagesof flash dies or an array of flash dies. Such flash dies may be packagedin any number of ways, with a single die per package, multiple dies perpackage, in hybrid packages, as bare dies on a printed circuit board orother substrate, as encapsulated dies, and so on. Although notillustrated in FIG. 11 , an input output (I/O) port may be coupled tothe flash dies and a direct memory access (DMA′) unit may also becoupled directly or indirectly to the flash dies. Such components may beimplemented, for example, on a programmable logic device (PLD′) such asa field programmable gate array (‘FPGA’). The flash memory (830, 832,834) depicted in FIG. 11 may be organized as pages of a predeterminedsize, blocks that include a predetermined number of pages, and so on.

The NVRAM (836, 838, 840) depicted in FIG. 11 may be embodied, forexample, as one or more non-volatile dual in-line memory modules(‘NVDIMMs’), as one more DRAM dual in-line memory modules (‘DIMMs’) thatreceive primary power through a DIMM slot but are also attached to abackup power source such as a supercapacitor, and so on. The NVRAM (836,838, 840) depicted in FIG. 11 may be utilized as a memory buffer fortemporarily storing data that will be written to flash memory (830, 832,834), as writing data to the NVRAM (836, 838, 840) may be carried outmore quickly than writing data to flash memory (830, 832, 834). In thisway, the latency of write requests may be significantly improvedrelative to a system in which data is written directly to the flashmemory (830, 832, 834).

In the example method depicted in FIG. 11 , a first blade (802) includesa first authority (168) that is executing on the compute resources (810)within the first blade (802) and a second blade (806) includes a secondauthority (168) that is executing on the compute resources (814) withinthe second blade (806). Each authority (168) represents a logicalpartition of control and may be embodied as a module of softwareexecuting on the compute resources (810, 812, 814) of a particular blade(802, 804, 806). Each authority (168) may be configured to control howand where data is stored in storage system. For example, authorities(168) may assist in determining which type of erasure coding scheme isapplied to the data, authorities (168) may assist in determining whereone or more portions of the data may be stored in the storage system,and so on. Each authority (168) may control a range of inode numbers,segment numbers, or other data identifiers which are assigned to data bya file system or some other entity.

Each authority (168) may operate independently and autonomously on itspartition of each of the entity spaces defined within the system. Eachauthority (168) may serve as an independent controller over thosespaces, each providing its own data and metadata structures, its ownbackground workers, and maintaining its own lifecycle. Each authority(168) may, for example, allocate its own segments, maintains its ownlog/pyramid, maintain its own NVRAM, define its own sequence ranges foradvancing persistent state, boot independently, and so on.

Readers will appreciate that every piece of data and every piece ofmetadata stored in the storage system is owned by a particular authority(168). Each authority (168) may cause data that is owned by theauthority (168) to be stored within storage that is located within thesame blade whose computing resources are supporting the authority (168)or within storage that is located on some other blade. In the exampledepicted in FIG. 11 :

-   -   a. The authority (168) that is executing on the compute        resources (810) within a first blade (802) has caused data to be        stored within a portion (820) of flash (830) that is physically        located within the first blade (802).    -   b. The authority (168) that is executing on the compute        resources (810) within a first blade (802) has also caused data        to be stored in a portion (842) of NVRAM (836) that is        physically located within the first blade (802).    -   c. The authority (168) that is executing on the compute        resources (810) within the first blade (802) has also caused        data to be stored within a portion (822) of flash (832) on the        second blade (804) in the storage system.    -   d. The authority (168) that is executing on the compute        resources (810) within the first blade (802) has also caused        data to be stored within a portion (826) of flash (834) and a        portion (846) of NVRAM (840) on the fourth blade (808) in the        storage system.    -   e. The authority (168) that is executing on the compute        resources (814) within the third blade (802) has caused data to        be stored within a portion (844) of NVRAM (836) that is        physically located within the first blade (802).    -   f. The authority (168) that is executing on the compute        resources (814) within the third blade (802) has also caused        data to be stored within a portion (824) of flash (832) within        the second blade (804).    -   g. The authority (168) that is executing on the compute        resources (814) within the third blade (802) has also caused        data to be stored within a portion (828) of flash (834) within        the fourth blade (808).    -   h. The authority (168) that is executing on the compute        resources (814) within the third blade (802) has also caused        data to be stored within a portion (848) of NVRAM (840) within        the fourth blade (808).

Readers will appreciate that many embodiments other than the embodimentdepicted in FIG. 11 are contemplated as it relates to the relationshipbetween data, authorities, and system components. In some embodiments,every piece of data and every piece of metadata has redundancy in thestorage system. In some embodiments, the owner of a particular piece ofdata or a particular piece of metadata may be a ward, with an authoritybeing a group or set of wards. Likewise, in some embodiments there areredundant copies of authorities. In some embodiments, authorities have arelationship to blades and the storage resources contained therein. Forexample, each authority may cover a range of data segment numbers orother identifiers of the data and each authority may be assigned to aspecific storage resource. Data may be stored in a segment according tosome embodiments of the present disclosure, and such segments may beassociated with a segment number which serves as indirection for aconfiguration of a RAID stripe. A segment may identify a set of storageresources and a local identifier into the set of storage resources thatmay contain data. In some embodiments, the local identifier may be anoffset into a storage device and may be reused sequentially by multiplesegments. In other embodiments the local identifier may be unique for aspecific segment and never reused. The offsets in the storage device maybe applied to locating data for writing to or reading from the storagedevice.

Readers will appreciate that if there is a change in where a particularsegment of data is located (e.g., during a data move or a datareconstruction), the authority for that data segment should beconsulted. In order to locate a particular piece of data, a hash valuefor a data segment may be calculated, an inode number may be applied, adata segment number may be applied, and so on. The output of such anoperation can point to a storage resource for the particular piece ofdata. In some embodiments the operation described above may be carriedout in two stages. The first stage maps an entity identifier (ID) suchas a segment number, an inode number, or directory number to anauthority identifier. This mapping may include a calculation such as ahash or a bit mask. The second stage maps the authority identifier to aparticular storage resource, which may be done through an explicitmapping. The operation may be repeatable, so that when the calculationis performed, the result of the calculation reliably points to aparticular storage resource. The operation may take the set of reachablestorage resources as input, and if the set of reachable storageresources changes, the optimal set changes. In some embodiments, apersisted value represents the current assignment and the calculatedvalue represents the target assignment the cluster will attempt toreconfigure towards.

The compute resources (810, 812, 814) within the blades (802, 804, 806)may be tasked with breaking up data to be written to storage resourcesin the storage system. When data is to be written to a storage resource,the authority for that data is located as described above. When thesegment ID for data is already determined, the request to write the datais forwarded to the blade that is hosting the authority, as determinedusing the segment ID. The computing resources on such a blade may beutilized to break up the data and transmit the data for writing to astorage resource, at which point the transmitted data may be written asa data stripe in accordance with an erasure coding scheme. In someembodiments, data is requested to be pulled and in other embodimentsdata is pushed. When compute resources (810, 812, 814) within the blades(802, 804, 806) are tasked with reassembling data read from storageresources in the storage system, the authority for the segment IDcontaining the data is located as described above.

The compute resources (810, 812, 814) within the blades (802, 804, 806)may also be tasked with reassembling data read from storage resources inthe storage system. The compute resources (810, 812, 814) that supportthe authority that owns the data may request the data from theappropriate storage resource. In some embodiments, the data may be readfrom flash storage as a data stripe. The compute resources (810, 812,814) that support the authority that owns the data may be utilized toreassemble the read data, including correcting any errors according tothe appropriate erasure coding scheme, and forward the reassembled datato the network. In other embodiments, breaking up and reassembling data,or some portion thereof, may be performed by the storage resourcesthemselves.

The preceding paragraphs discuss the concept of a segment. A segment mayrepresent a logical container of data in accordance with someembodiments. A segment may be embodied, for example, as an address spacebetween medium address space and physical flash locations. Segments mayalso contain metadata that enables data redundancy to be restored(rewritten to different flash locations or devices) without theinvolvement of higher level software. In some embodiments, an internalformat of a segment contains client data and medium mappings todetermine the position of that data. Each data segment may be protectedfrom memory and other failures, for example, by breaking the segmentinto a number of data and parity shards. The data and parity shards maybe distributed by striping the shards across storage resources inaccordance with an erasure coding scheme.

The examples described above relate, at least to some extent, to chassisfor use in a storage system that supports independent scaling of computeresources and storage resources, blades for use in storage systems thatsupport independent scaling of compute resources and storage resources,and storage systems that support independent scaling of computeresources and storage resources. Readers will appreciate that theresources that are independently scaled, compute resources and storageresources, are those resources that are generally available to users ofthe storage system. For example, the storage resources that areindependently scaled may be storage resources that a user of the storagesystem can use to persistently store user data. Likewise, the computeresources that are independently scaled may be compute resources that auser of the storage system can use to support the execution ofapplications, authorities, and the like.

Readers will appreciate that while the host servers described above withreference to FIGS. 5, 6, and 8 include memory, such memory is notconsidered to be part of the storage resources that are independentlyscaled. Such memory is included in the host server for the purpose ofsupporting the execution of instructions by a processor that is alsoincluded in the host server. Such memory is not, however, included inthe host server for the purpose of expanding the amount of storage thata storage system that includes the blades depicted in FIGS. 5, 6, and 8can make available to users of the storage system. As such, a computeblade is described above as lacking storage resources, in spite of thefact that the compute blade can include some form of memory that may beused to support the execution of computer program instructions by thecompute resources in the compute blade.

Readers will similarly appreciate that while the storage units describedabove with reference to FIGS. 5, 6, and 7 include an ARM and an FPGA,such devices are not considered to be part of the compute resources thatare independently scaled. Such devices are included in the storage unitsfor the purpose of accessing storage in the storage units in much thesame way that a memory controller accesses memory. Such devices are not,however, included in the storage units for the purpose of expanding theamount of computing resources that a storage system that includes theblades depicted in FIGS. 5, 6, and 7 can make available to users of thestorage system. As such, a storage blade is described above as lackingcompute resources, in spite of the fact that the storage blade caninclude some devices that may be used to support the execution ofcomputer program instructions that read and write data to attachedstorage.

For further explanation, FIG. 12 sets forth a block diagram of automatedcomputing machinery comprising an example computer (952) useful insupporting independent scaling of compute resources and storageresources according to embodiments of the present disclosure. Thecomputer (952) of FIG. 12 includes at least one computer processor (956)or “CPU” as well as random access memory (“RAM”) (968) which isconnected through a high speed memory bus (966) and bus adapter (958) toprocessor (956) and to other components of the computer (952). Stored inRAM (968) is a dynamic configuration module (926), a module of computerprogram instructions for useful in supporting independent scaling ofcompute resources and storage resources according to embodiments of thepresent disclosure. The dynamic configuration module (926) may beconfigured for supporting independent scaling of compute resources andstorage resources by performing a variety of support functions such as,for example, detecting the insertion of a blade into a chassis throughthe receipt of one or more device registration messages, admitting ablade that has been powered up into the storage system, logicallyremoving a blade that has been powered down from the storage system,maintaining information identifying available and unavailable resourcesin the storage system, and so on.

Also stored in RAM (968) is an operating system (954). Operating systemsuseful in computers configured for supporting independent scaling ofcompute resources and storage resources according to embodimentsdescribed herein include UNIX™, Linux™, Microsoft XP™, AIX™, IBM'si5/OS™, and others as will occur to those of skill in the art. Theoperating system (954) and dynamic configuration module (926) in theexample of FIG. 9 are shown in RAM (968), but many components of suchsoftware typically are stored in non-volatile memory also, such as, forexample, on a disk drive (970).

The example computer (952) of FIG. 12 also includes disk drive adapter(972) coupled through expansion bus (960) and bus adapter (958) toprocessor (956) and other components of the computer (952). Disk driveadapter (972) connects non-volatile data storage to the computer (952)in the form of disk drive (970). Disk drive adapters useful in computersconfigured for supporting independent scaling of compute resources andstorage resources according to embodiments described herein includeIntegrated Drive Electronics (“IDE”) adapters, Small Computer SystemInterface (“SCSI”) adapters, and others as will occur to those of skillin the art. Non-volatile computer memory also may be implemented for asan optical disk drive, electrically erasable programmable read-onlymemory (so-called “EEPROM” or “Flash” memory), RAM drives, and so on, aswill occur to those of skill in the art.

The example computer (952) of FIG. 12 includes one or more input/output(“I/O”) adapters (978). I/O adapters implement user-orientedinput/output through, for example, software drivers and computerhardware for controlling output to display devices such as computerdisplay screens, as well as user input from user input devices (982)such as keyboards and mice. The example computer (952) of FIG. 9includes a video adapter (909), which is an example of an I/O adapterspecially designed for graphic output to a display device (980) such asa display screen or computer monitor. Video adapter (909) is connectedto processor (956) through a high speed video bus (964), bus adapter(958), and the front side bus (962), which is also a high speed bus.

The example computer (952) of FIG. 12 includes a communications adapter(967) for data communications with a storage system (984) as describedabove and for data communications with a data communications network(900). Such data communications may be carried out serially throughRS-232 connections, through external buses such as a Universal SerialBus (‘USB’), a Fibre Channel data communications link, an Infinibanddata communications link, through data communications networks such asIP data communications networks, and in other ways as will occur tothose of skill in the art. Communications adapters implement thehardware level of data communications through which one computer sendsdata communications to another computer, directly or through a datacommunications network. Examples of communications adapters useful incomputers configured for supporting independent scaling of computeresources and storage resources according to embodiments describedherein include Ethernet (IEEE 802.3) adapters for wired datacommunications, Fibre Channel adapters, Infiniband adapters, and so on.

The computer (952) may implement certain instructions stored on RAM(968) for execution by processor (956) for supporting independentscaling of compute resources and storage resources. In some embodiments,dynamically configuring the storage system to facilitate independentscaling of resources may be implemented as part of a larger set ofexecutable instructions. For example, the dynamic configuration module(926) may be part of an overall system management process.

FIG. 13A sets forth a diagram of a single chassis 1116 storage systemthat has a switch 1002 for direct network-connected communication amongcomputing resources 1004, 1006, 1008 and storage resources 1010, 1012,1014 of the storage system according to embodiments of the presentdisclosure. The switch 1002 can be integrated with the chassis 1116, orseparate from the chassis 1116, and is implemented as a network switch,an Ethernet switch, switch fabric, a switch matrix, a switch module, afabric module or multiple switches in various embodiments. Multipleblades, which can be heterogeneous or homogeneous and includecompute-only blades, storage-only blades or hybrid compute and storageblades in various combinations, populate the chassis 1116.

Each compute resource 1004, 1006, 1008 and each storage resource 1010,1012, 1014 in the blades is direct network-connected to the switch 1002,for example without bridging to PCIe (peripheral component interconnectexpress) or other bridging or routing to other networks to communicatewith a compute resource 1004, 1006, 1008 or a storage resource 1010,1012, 1014. That is, the switch 1002 direct network-connects processorsor compute resources and solid-state storage memory or storage resourcesin the storage system. Each compute resource 1004, 1006, 1008 cancommunicate with each other compute resource 1004, 1006, 1008 and witheach storage resource 1010 1012, 1014, through the switch 1002. Eachstorage resource 1010, 1012, 1014 can communicate with each otherstorage resource 1010, 1012, 1014 and with each compute resource 1004,1006, 1008, through the switch 1002. In some embodiments, communicationuses Ethernet protocol, or other network protocol.

FIG. 13B sets forth a diagram of a multi-chassis 1116 storage systemthat has a switch 1002, 1016 for direct network-connected communicationamong compute resources 1004, 1008, 1018, 1020 and storage resources1010, 1014, 1022, 1024 of the storage system according to embodiments ofthe present disclosure. Multiple chassis 1116 can be arranged on one ormore racks or otherwise coupled by a switch 1016, such as a top of rackswitch or other switch such as described with reference to FIG. 10A.Each chassis 1116 has multiple blades in heterogeneous or homogeneousarrangement with compute resources and storage resources, in variousembodiments such as described with reference to FIG. 10A. Thecombination of the switches 1002 in each of the multiple chassis 1116and the switch 1016 coupling the multiple chassis 1116 act as a switch1002, 1016 that direct network-connects processors or compute resourcesand solid-state storage memory or storage resources in the storagesystem. In further embodiments, the switch 1002, 1016 is an integratedswitch that both couples multiple chassis 1116 and couples computeresources 1004, 1008, 1018, 1020 and storage resources 1010, 1014, 1022,1024 in the multiple chassis 1116.

As in single chassis embodiments, each compute resource 1004, 1008,1018, 1020 can communicate with each other compute resource 1004, 1008,1018, 1020 and with each storage resource 1010, 1014, 1022, 1024,through the switch 1002, 1016. Each storage resource 1010, 1014, 1022,1024 can communicate with each other storage resource 1010, 1014, 1022,1024 and with each compute resource 1004, 1008, 1018, 1020, through theswitch 1002, 1016. In some embodiments, communication uses Ethernetprotocol, or other network protocol.

Switch 1002, in single chassis storage systems such as shown in FIG.13A, and switch 1002, 1016, in multi-chassis storage systems such asshown in FIG. 13B, support disaggregated compute resources and storageresources in the storage system. A storage resource and a computerresource do not need to be in the same blade, or even in the samechassis 1116 when communicating with each other. There is little or nopenalty in terms of communication delay or latency, when communicatingbetween any two compute resources or storage resources, or any computeresource and any storage resource, regardless of location in the storagesystem. All such resources can be treated as being approximately equallyclose, without need of aggregating resources in a given blade.

Disaggregation of compute resources and storage resources supportsstorage system expansion and scalability, because read and writeaccesses, data striping and all forms of communication among resourcesdo not suffer worsening delays as the system grows. At most, there is asmall communication delay penalty when going from a single chassissystem to a multi-chassis system, as a result of the additional layer ofswitching in some embodiments, but no penalty for adding blades toeither system, and no penalty for adding more chassis to a multi-chassissystem.

FIG. 14A sets forth a diagram of a storage resource 1102 for embodimentsof a storage system, with flash memory 1104 and a flash controller 1106connected to a switch 1002 such as shown in FIGS. 13A and 13B. Asuitable example of a flash controller 1106 is shown in FIGS. 5-7 , withan ARM 516 (processor or CPU) and FPGA 520, and other flash controllersare readily devised. Further versions with other types of solid-statestorage memory and other types of controller suitable to those memoriesare readily devised. The flash controller 1106 manages the flash memory1104 and communicates with other resources using an appropriate networkprotocol through the switch 1002, thus supporting directnetwork-connection of the storage resource 1102. This version of astorage resource 1102 could be in a storage-only blade, or a hybridcompute and storage blade, in various embodiments.

FIG. 14B sets forth a diagram of a storage resource 1114 for embodimentsof a storage system, with flash memory 1112, a NIC (network interfacecard or network interface controller) 1108 and a packet processingcontrol processor 1110, with the NIC 1108 connected to a switch 1002such as shown in FIGS. 13A and 13B. The NIC 1108 is implemented on acard, one or more integrated circuits, or as a module in an integratedcircuit such as a full custom chip, ASIC or FPGA, in variousembodiments, and can be local to the flash memory 1112 or remote fromthe flash memory 1112. A packet processing control processor 1110connects to the flash memory 1112 and composes and decomposes packetswith the NIC 1108, so that the flash memory 1112 can communicate overthe switch 1002 with other resources in the storage system. As with theversion of a storage resource 1102 shown in FIG. 11A, this versionsupports direct network-connection of the storage resource 1102 andcould be in a storage-only blade or a hybrid compute and storage blade.

FIG. 14C sets forth a diagram of a storage resource 1118 for embodimentsof a storage system, with network-connectable flash memory 1116connected to a switch 1002 such as shown in FIGS. 13A and 13B.Network-connectable flash memory 1116 has a NIC 1108, flash controller1106 or other module for network connection on chip or in package, insome embodiments. This supports direct network-connection of the storageresource 1118, and could be in a storage-only blade or a hybrid computeand storage blade.

FIG. 15 sets forth a diagram depicting compute resources 1004, 1006,1008 voting to assign a host controller 1206 for a storage resource 1012to one of the computing resources 1008. The host controller 1206 doesnot need to be assigned to a compute resource 1008 that has the storageresource 1012 on the same blade. That is, the host controller 1206 couldbe assigned to a compute resource 1008 on a different blade from thestorage resource 1012 that is controlled by the host controller 1206,for example two hybrid blades, a compute-only blade and a storage-onlyblade, a hybrid blade and a storage-only blade, or a compute-only bladeand a hybrid blade. Or the host controller 1206 could be assigned to acompute resource 1008 on the same blade that has the storage resource1012 corresponding to the host controller 1206, e.g., a hybrid blade.

Various voting mechanisms and communication for voting are readilydevised in keeping with the teachings herein. In some embodiments, eachstorage resource has an assigned host controller, in the computeresources. There could be zero, one, or more than one host controller ona given blade, in various embodiments, and host controllers could betransferred, reassigned to another blade, or replaced as resources areshifted or blades are added to or removed from the storage system, or afailure occurs. This ability to hold a vote 1202 and assign 1204 thehost controller 1206 to any of a number of available compute resourcessupports disaggregated compute resources and storage resources in thestorage system, because the storage memory is not required to beaggregated with the host controller that is managing the storage memoryor processor(s) that are communicating with the storage memory for anyspecific communication. Host controller and corresponding storage memoryare not required to be in the same blade, or even in the same chassis.In FIG. 12 , the host controller 1206, no matter which compute resource1004, 1006, 1008 and blade is assigned to have the host controller 1206,communicates with a corresponding storage resource 1012 through theswitch 1208.

FIG. 16 is a flow diagram of a method of communicating in a storagesystem that has disaggregated compute resources and storage memory,which can be practiced by embodiments of storage systems describedherein and variations thereof. The method can be practiced by variousprocessors in the computing resources and storage resources inembodiments of storage systems. In an action 1302, computing resourcesand storage resources in various blades of a storage cluster are coupledthrough a network switch. The storage cluster could be single or multichassis, and the blades could be homogeneous or heterogeneous. In anaction 1304, compute resources cooperate to select, elect and/or assignhost controllers in the computing resources, for the solid-state storagememories. Each host controller communicates with and manages acorresponding solid-state storage memory, but the host controller andcorresponding solid-state storage memory are not required to be on thesame blade (although they can be so).

In an action 1306 of FIG. 16 , computing resources and storage resourcescommunicate with each other through the network switch. For example,this communication could use Ethernet protocol. Communication can beamong resources in a single chassis, or among resources in multiplechassis. In an action 1308, data stripes are written from computingresources and blades to storage resources in blades, by communicationthrough the network switch. The storage resources have solid-statestorage memories, in various embodiments. In an action 1310, datastripes are read from storage resources in the blades to computingresources in the blades, by communication through the network switch.Further embodiments of the method are readily devised, includingvariations with specific communications, specific resources, and varioustypes of switches, blades, compute resources and storage resources asdescribed herein for embodiments of storage systems.

FIG. 17 illustrates a 10 slot 1704 chassis 1702 with removable computeblades 1706 with 4 slots 1708 for flash modules in a 5 rack unit. Thecompute blades 1706 are removable from the front of the chassis 1702.Each compute blade 1706 in this example has four slots for removablemodules, and each module in the compute blade 1706 is a flash memorymodule, or other type of storage memory module. Other types of modules,as further discussed below, could be used in various embodiments toreconfigure the blades. The five rack unit (5RU) chassis has twointegrated external fabric modules (EFMs) in some embodiments.

FIG. 18 illustrates a system 1802 in an 8 rack unit with two fabricmodules 1804 and 4 controllers 1806. Slots 1808 are shown occupied byblades with solid-state memory, in this example flash memory. In someembodiments, the blades have removable modules, with various amounts ofsolid-state memory, and the storage system supports heterogeneous mixesof modules and blades.

FIG. 19 illustrates 5 controllers 1902 and 22 custom storage modules1904 with 2 flash modules in a 5 rack unit. Each of five CPU slots 1906has a controller 1902 installed. In some embodiments, the flash modulesin each storage module 1904 are removable, and may be replaced withvarious capacity flash modules, for example as a storage memory upgrade.In some embodiments, a flash module is replaceable with a computemodule, to reconfigure the storage module 1904 as a combination computeand storage module, or, with both flash modules replaced by computemodules, as a compute-only module. Accordingly, this embodiment enablesthe addition of compute and storage together and/or separately forscaling or other purposes as the blade no longer has compute and flashembedded together. In some embodiments, the storage blade 702 of FIG. 7may be modified to remove the ARM 516 and FPGA 520 and thus would be astorage module as described herein. In another embodiment, computeresource 810 of blade 802 of FIG. 11 is optional and thus there mayexist a modular architecture where there is compute and flash, computeand accelerators or offload engines, or just flash, i.e., no compute. Asdescribed further below the, the system is designed to be modular forflexibility so that changes can be made easily through thereplacement/substitution of modular components. Furthermore, the modularcomponents may include accelerators or graphic processing units that arecompatible with the form factor of the storage module and plug into orcombine with the compute module. In some embodiments, the acceleratorsmay replace the compute module on the main board. Various types ofaccelerators are described below.

FIG. 20 illustrates a 3 rack unit expansion shelf 2006. Both thehorizontal slots 2004 and the vertical slots 2002 have blades/modulesinstalled. The blades/modules have removable modules, or non-removablemodules, in various embodiments. A heterogeneous mix of blades and/or aheterogeneous mix of modules is supported in various embodiments ofstorage systems. In some embodiments, there may be no modules added to ablade of the storage system. In this embodiment a new blade type can beinserted into the system where the new blade type uses the entire volumeof the slot. The new blade type may have additional compute (such as adual-socketed processor), a GPU, some other suitable accelerator, etc.

FIG. 21 illustrates servers 2102 with up to 8 drive slots each andcorresponding fabric modules 2108. In this example, each server 2102 hasNVRAM 2104 and one or more solid-state drives 2106 in the drive slots.Fully populated, the server 2102 can have eight solid-state drives 2106in the drive slots. In some embodiments, the solid-state drives 2106 areremovable modules. In some embodiments, the NVRAM 2104 is in a removablemodule.

FIG. 22 illustrates rack unit servers 2202 that are stateless plus anexternal shelf 2204. The external shelf 2204 is populated with storagememory blades 2206. In some embodiments, the blades 2206 have removablestorage memory modules.

FIG. 23 illustrates rack unit servers 2302 that that includenon-volatile random access memory 2304 plus an external shelf 2306.Storage memory blades 2308 are inserted in the external shelf 2306, andare removable. In some embodiments, each blade 2308 has one or moreremovable storage memory modules. It should be appreciated that FIGS.17-23 illustrate various combinations of combining storage and computethat provides numerous axes of freedom for scaling. The compute andstorage for the various embodiments may be added together into thesystem and/or separately as discussed herein. In addition, the fabricmodule coupling the blades may incorporate PCI and/or Ethernet. Withreference to FIGS. 14A-14C the NIC 1108 and CPU 1110 are detachablemodules. In addition NIC 1108 may be a SmartNIC or data processing unitthat offloads work from the main engine. The offloaded work can includestorage, compression, packet processing, and security functions. Thedata processing unit may be optimized for data movement in someembodiments.

FIG. 24A illustrates a blade 2402 with one type of slot 2404 for aremovable module 2406, accessible by removing the blade 2402 from achassis. Further embodiments with more than one slot 2404, and more thanone removable module 2406, accessible with the blade 2402 removed arereadily devised.

FIG. 24B illustrates a blade 2412 with another type of slot 2408 for aremovable module 2410, accessible without removing the blade 2412 fromthe chassis. For example, if the blade 2412 is inserted to the left,into a chassis, the module 2410 can be inserted from the right, into theslot 2408 in the blade 2412 with the blade 2412 in the chassis. Themodule 2410 is also removable from the slot 2408 with the blade 2412 inthe chassis.

FIG. 24C illustrates a blade 2414 with multiple slots 2408 for aremovable module 2410. The module 2410 can be inserted into, or removedor exchanged from, any of the slots 2408, as can further modules 2410.Variations with various numbers of slots 2408 are readily devised.

With reference at least to FIGS. 24A-24C, there are many possiblecombinations and configurations of blades with various removable modulesin various embodiments. One blade embodiment can be configured as acompute-only blade, a storage-only blade, and a combination compute andstorage blade (also called a hybrid compute/storage blade), throughselection of appropriate removable module(s). For example, acompute-only blade could have one or multiple removable modules eachwith compute resources such as one or more processors, a processorcluster, or multiple processor clusters. A storage-only blade could haveone or multiple removable modules each with flash memory, othersolid-state memory, or other storage memory, of homogeneous orheterogeneous amounts of memory, NVRAM, or combination of NVRAM andstorage memory. A combination compute and storage blade could have oneor more compute resources modules, and one or more storage resourcesmodules. A compute-only blade can be reconfigured as or converted to acompute/storage blade or a storage-only blade. A storage-only blade canbe reconfigured as or converted to a compute/storage blade or acompute-only blade. A compute/storage blade can be reconfigured as orconverted to a compute-only or a storage-only blade. In essence, theblades described with the embodiments described herein can optionallyhave storage and that storage is detachable. The compute complex for theblades can optional connect to the detachable storage. Thus, the bladecan be changed from a compute blade to a storage blade or vice versarather than starting with a blade that is limited to a compute blade ora storage blade.

One embodiment of a removable module has one or more accelerators, as anaccelerator module. The removable module may include one or moregraphics processing units (GPUs), which can be used as processingresources. In some embodiments, the removable module has one or moreneural networks, for example with appropriate processor(s), datastructuring and connectivity. As mentioned above, the removable modulehas a smart network interface controller (SmartNIC), or more than one.One removable module has a data processing unit (DPU), or more than one.One removable module has a SmartNIC with a programmable DPU thatperforms data processing tasks such as compression/decompression,encryption/decryption in cooperation with the network interfacecontroller, to offload network data handling and communication tasksfrom another processor(s), e.g., a blade processor or a storagecontroller. Through selectability of a variety of removable modules, ablade is configurable and reconfigurable multiple ways, in variousembodiments. The accelerator may offload any software function from themain engine or host in some embodiments. It should be appreciated thatthe type of memory integrated into the embodiments is not limited toflash as other types of memory such as RAM, 3D crosspoint storage, etc.may be included.

FIG. 25 illustrates a flow diagram of a method that is practiced on orby embodiments of storage systems. This method of configuring a storagesystem, and variations thereof, makes use of removable modules, bladesand storage systems described herein, and variations thereof.

In an action 2502, first data is accessed in the storage system. Thiscould be user data, system data, metadata, etc., in various embodimentsof storage systems that have blades.

In an action 2504, a removable module is added to a blade, or to each ofmultiple blades. Various suitable modules are described above. Theaddition of a removable module could be an addition of a new module, ora replacement of an existing module, on a blade. The removable modulemay be an accelerator or data processing unit as described herein. Theblade could be made into a hybrid blade by adding compute resources orstorage resources in some embodiment. As the components are modular thecomplexity and cost with replacing an entire blade is avoided.

In an action 2506, the first data or second data is accessed in thestorage system. One or more of the blades has been reconfigured byadding the removable module. It is appreciated that the storage systemis operational both before and after the addition of the removablemodule(s), be it a new addition, the replacement of one or moreremovable modules, or a combination of replacement and addition. Thestorage system may show new capabilities, features, or improvement, forexample in storage capacity, type of storage memory, computationalcapacity, data handling, throughput and/or latency or other aspects ofdata management and access, from the addition or replacement of one ormore removable modules.

Although some embodiments are described largely in the context of astorage system, readers of skill in the art will recognize thatembodiments of the present disclosure may also take the form of acomputer program product disposed upon computer readable storage mediafor use with any suitable processing system. Such computer readablestorage media may be any storage medium for machine-readableinformation, including magnetic media, optical media, solid-state media,or other suitable media. Examples of such media include magnetic disksin hard drives or diskettes, compact disks for optical drives, magnetictape, and others as will occur to those of skill in the art. Personsskilled in the art will immediately recognize that any computer systemhaving suitable programming means will be capable of executing the stepsdescribed herein as embodied in a computer program product. Personsskilled in the art will recognize also that, although some of theembodiments described in this specification are oriented to softwareinstalled and executing on computer hardware, nevertheless, alternativeembodiments implemented as firmware or as hardware are well within thescope of the present disclosure.

In some examples, a non-transitory computer-readable medium storingcomputer-readable instructions may be provided in accordance with theprinciples described herein. The instructions, when executed by aprocessor of a computing device, may direct the processor and/orcomputing device to perform one or more operations, including one ormore of the operations described herein. Such instructions may be storedand/or transmitted using any of a variety of known computer-readablemedia.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium as referred to herein mayinclude any non-transitory storage medium that participates in providingdata (e.g., instructions) that may be read and/or executed by acomputing device (e.g., by a processor of a computing device). Forexample, a non-transitory computer-readable medium may include, but isnot limited to, any combination of non-volatile storage media and/orvolatile storage media. Exemplary non-volatile storage media include,but are not limited to, read-only memory, flash memory, a solid-statedrive, a magnetic storage device (e.g. a hard disk, a floppy disk,magnetic tape, etc.), ferroelectric random-access memory (“RAM”), and anoptical disc (e.g., a compact disc, a digital video disc, a Blu-raydisc, etc.). Exemplary volatile storage media include, but are notlimited to, RAM (e.g., dynamic RAM).

Advantages and features of the present disclosure can be furtherdescribed by the following statements:

-   -   1. A storage system, comprising:        -   a plurality of blades comprising, in aggregate, compute            resources and storage resources; and        -   at least one of the plurality of blades having one or more            removable modules.    -   2. The storage system of statement 1, wherein the one or more        removable modules comprises storage memory as a portion of the        storage resources.    -   3. The storage system of statement 1, wherein the one or more        removable modules comprises one or more processors as a portion        of the compute resources.    -   4. The storage system of statement 1, wherein the at least one        of the plurality of blades, through selectability of the one or        more removable modules, is configurable as each of a        compute-only blade, a storage-only blade, and a combination        compute and storage blade.    -   5. The storage system of statement 1, wherein the one or more        removable modules comprises an accelerator module.    -   6. The storage system of statement 1, wherein the one or more        removable modules comprises a data processing unit (DPU).    -   7. The storage system of statement 1, wherein the one or more        removable modules comprises a smart network interface controller        (SmartNIC).    -   8. The storage system of statement 1, wherein the one or more        removable modules comprises one or more graphics processing        units (GPU) as a portion of the compute resources.    -   9. The storage system of statement 1, wherein the one or more        removable modules comprises a neural network as a portion of the        compute resources.    -   10. The storage system of statement 1, wherein:        -   blades of the plurality of blades are coupled as a storage            cluster or a storage array; and        -   the blades of the plurality of blades are heterogeneous as            to the compute resources, the storage resources and the one            or more removable modules.    -   11. The storage system of statement 1, wherein the at least one        of the plurality of blades comprises a blade having a plurality        of slots for a plurality of removable modules.    -   12. A storage system, comprising:        -   a plurality of blades coupled as a storage array or a            storage cluster; and        -   each of one or more of the plurality of blades having one or            more removable modules.    -   13. The storage system of statement 12, wherein the one or more        removable modules comprises various amounts of flash memory.    -   14. The storage system of statement 12, wherein the one or more        removable modules comprises one or more processors, data        processing units, graphics processing units, or accelerators.    -   15. The storage system of statement 12, wherein the one or more        of the plurality of blades, through the one or more removable        modules, is configurable as a compute-only blade, configurable        as a storage-only blade, and configurable as a combination        compute and storage blade.    -   16. The storage system of statement 12, wherein the one or more        removable modules comprises a SmartNIC having a DPU.    -   17. A method of configuring a storage system, comprising:        -   accessing first data in the storage system;        -   adding a removable module to each of one or more of a            plurality of blades of a storage system; and        -   accessing the first data or second data in the storage            system, with the one or more of the plurality of blades            reconfigured by the adding the removable module to each of            the one or more of the plurality of blades.    -   18. The method of statement 17, wherein the adding the removable        module comprises adding a processor, storage memory, a SmartNIC,        an accelerator, a DPU or a GPU.    -   19. The method of statement 17, further comprising:        -   removing a further removable module from another of the            plurality of blades.    -   20. The method of statement 17, further comprising:        -   replacing a further removable module in another of the            plurality of blades by a still further removable module.

One or more embodiments may be described herein with the aid of methodsteps illustrating the performance of specified functions andrelationships thereof. The boundaries and sequence of these functionalbuilding blocks and method steps have been arbitrarily defined hereinfor convenience of description. Alternate boundaries and sequences canbe defined so long as the specified functions and relationships areappropriately performed. Any such alternate boundaries or sequences arethus within the scope and spirit of the claims. Further, the boundariesof these functional building blocks have been arbitrarily defined forconvenience of description. Alternate boundaries could be defined aslong as the certain significant functions are appropriately performed.Similarly, flow diagram blocks may also have been arbitrarily definedherein to illustrate certain significant functionality.

To the extent used, the flow diagram block boundaries and sequence couldhave been defined otherwise and still perform the certain significantfunctionality. Such alternate definitions of both functional buildingblocks and flow diagram blocks and sequences are thus within the scopeand spirit of the claims. One of average skill in the art will alsorecognize that the functional building blocks, and other illustrativeblocks, modules and components herein, can be implemented as illustratedor by discrete components, application specific integrated circuits,processors executing appropriate software and the like or anycombination thereof.

While particular combinations of various functions and features of theone or more embodiments are expressly described herein, othercombinations of these features and functions are likewise possible. Thepresent disclosure is not limited by the particular examples disclosedherein and expressly incorporates these other combinations.

What is claimed is:
 1. A storage system, comprising: a plurality ofblades comprising, in aggregate, compute resources and storageresources; and at least one of the plurality of blades having one ormore removable modules, wherein the compute resources of the pluralityof blades and a first subset of the one or more removable modules have afirst power distribution bus and a first power domain, and the storageresources of the plurality of blades and a second subset of the one ormore removable modules have a second power distribution bus and a secondpower domain distinct from the first power distribution bus and thefirst power domain, and the second subset of the one or more removablemodules having a plurality of heterogeneous removable non-volatile flashmemory devices, wherein respective power domains includes multipleinstances, the multiple instances associated with separate resources ofthe system, and the multiple instances controlled independently.
 2. Thestorage system of claim 1, wherein the one or more removable modulescomprises non-volatile memory as a portion of the storage resources. 3.The storage system of claim 1, wherein the one or more removable modulescomprises one or more processors as a portion of the compute resources.4. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the at least one of theplurality of blades, through selectability of the one or more removablemodules, is configurable as each of a compute-only blade, a storage-onlyblade, and a combination compute and storage blade.
 5. The storagesystem of claim 1, wherein the one or more removable modules comprisesan accelerator module.
 6. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the oneor more removable modules comprises a data processing unit (DPU).
 7. Thestorage system of claim 1, wherein the one or more removable modulescomprises a smart network interface controller (SmartNIC).
 8. Thestorage system of claim 1, wherein the one or more removable modulescomprises one or more graphics processing units (GPU) as a portion ofthe compute resources.
 9. The storage system of claim 1, wherein the oneor more removable modules comprises a neural network as a portion of thecompute resources.
 10. The storage system of claim 1, wherein: blades ofthe plurality of blades are coupled as a storage cluster or a storagearray; and the blades of the plurality of blades are heterogeneous as tothe compute resources, the storage resources and the one or moreremovable modules.
 11. A storage system, comprising: a plurality ofblades coupled as a storage array or a storage cluster; and each of oneor more of the plurality of blades having one or more removable modules,wherein compute resources of the plurality of blades and a first subsetof the one or more removable modules have a first power distribution busand a first power domain, and storage resources of the plurality ofblades and a second subset of the one or more removable modules have asecond power distribution bus and a second power domain distinct fromthe first power distribution bus and the first power domain, and thesecond subset of the one or more removable modules having a plurality ofheterogeneous removable non-volatile flash memory devices, whereinrespective power domains includes multiple instances, the multipleinstances associated with separate resources of the system, and themultiple instances controlled independently.
 12. The storage system ofclaim 11, wherein the one or more removable modules comprises variousamounts of non-volatile flash memory.
 13. The storage system of claim11, wherein the one or more removable modules comprises one or moreprocessors, data processing units, graphics processing units, oraccelerators.
 14. The storage system of claim 11, wherein the one ormore of the plurality of blades, through the one or more removablemodules, is configurable as a compute-only blade, configurable as astorage-only blade, and configurable as a combination compute andstorage blade.
 15. The storage system of claim 11, wherein the one ormore removable modules comprises a SmartNIC having a DPU.
 16. A methodof configuring a storage system, comprising: accessing first data in thestorage system; adding a removable module to each of one or more of aplurality of blades of a storage system; wherein compute resources ofthe plurality of blades and the removable module have a first powerdistribution bus and a first power domain, and storage resources of theplurality of blades and the removable module have a second powerdistribution bus and a second power domain distinct from the first powerdistribution bus and the first power domain, wherein at least oneremovable module has a plurality of heterogeneous removable non-volatileflash memory devices, and wherein respective power domains includesmultiple instances, the multiple instances associated with separateresources of the system, and the multiple instances controlledindependently; and accessing the first data or second data in thestorage system, with the one or more of the plurality of bladesreconfigured by the adding the removable module to each of the one ormore of the plurality of blades.
 17. The method of claim 16, wherein theadding the removable module comprises adding a processor, storagememory, a SmartNIC, an accelerator, a DPU or a GPU.
 18. The method ofclaim 16, further comprising: removing a further removable module fromanother of the plurality of blades.